(Continued from Part One…)

With the Horns Effect, teachers are less patient with a bullied student who asks questions in class. Therefore, the student will eventually stop asking for help. Thus the target of bullying won’t learn as much, won’t work hard, and won’t make very high grades. Consequently, this will only activate the teacher’s confirmation bias and reinforce her opinion of the poor kid. She will assume that the kid is lazy, good for nothing and a crappy student.

If you’re under the thumb of the Horns Effect, others begin to see you as a terrible person. And they will block any opportunities for friendships, relationships, and success as word travels quickly.

Anytime you suffer bullying and feel you can’t do anything right by anyone, you can bet that you’re under the spell of The Horns Effect.

An Unfair Disadvantage 

It doesn’t matter whether or not people’s hatred of you is deserved. The Horns Effect mars everyone’s interactions with you. As a result, it leaves you feeling like you’re banging your head against a brick wall. Because although you may try, you don’t seem to get anywhere with people.

And because the mistreated target is unhappy, miserable, depressed and angry (and who wouldn’t be under those circumstances?), everyone who already hates the target feels more justified in their hatred.

Sadly, once the Horn Effect takes hold and people form an image of the target, it’s almost impossible to change. No matter what or how many good deeds she does, or how kind she is to others, people will see her good actions as a ploy to kiss-up to and manipulate people.

A Powerful Tool for Bullies

Understand that The Horns Effect is what bullies count on. And once the bullies complete their agenda of destroying your reputation, The Horns Affect will automatically come into play.

(The Horns Effect- the tendency to see one bad thing in a person and believe that everything about that person is bad).

It’s tough to get others to change their first impressions of you. It can be done but it takes a truckload of patience and consistency. It also takes a certain amount of pointing out your good qualities, hard work and successes to people. Ironically, this can backfire if you aren’t careful, because people may only think you’re an arrogant braggart.

Realize that any effort to effect change may do no good or make the situation worse. Because people naturally base their decisions and behavior on deeply hidden feelings. Moreover, their actions toward you are subconscious.

Judgements Based on Emotions

Most people are either too lazy or too full-of-themselves to do any critical thinking. When they hate you, they will rationalize any hateful behavior. Also, they will search for clues which confirm that their attitude, feelings and subsequent actions and behavior are justified.

Teachers will often grade student’s papers based on their biases. In other words, they rank a student’s essay based on how they perceive that student. If a teacher sees a student be a low performer and lazy, they’ll grade that paper through that lens.

People don’t judge you from what’s actually there; they judge you from what they expect to be there. If people expect trouble to come from a particular place, then that’s where they’re going to look. Therefore, this brings me back to the subject. If people don’t like one thing about you, the chances are that they won’t like anything else about you, good or bad.

Who You Are Cancels Out Merit

Most ideas don’t stand on their own merits. People judge ideas based on who they came from.

The Horns and Halo Effects have a way of clouding people’s judgment of a person. People will make irrational beliefs because, again, they believe that the existence of one bad trait means that there are other bad qualities.

Any time you are under the shadow of The Horns Effect, anything you say, accomplish, create or do is automatically dismissed without consideration of whether it’s genuine.

No matter who said it or did it, it’s either genuine or it isn’t, based on its own merit. It is what it is, no matter who it came from. A good idea is a good idea, even if it comes from the town whore. A bad idea is a bad idea, even if it came from a pastor’s wife.

Unfortunately, you have little control over other’s perceptions and opinions of you. However, there are a few things you can do, which is to take care of yourself and do the things you love most and that fulfill your soul. Also, lean on and draw closer to the people who love you.

This is  how you keep the spell of The Horns Effect from trashing your self-esteem.

 

The Horns Effect (or Reverse Halo Effect) – is the opposite of the Halo Effect. It’s a form of bias that causes people’s perception of a person to be negative based on a single negative trait.

No one’s perfect, and everyone has negative traits. The Horns Effect is an example of how one negative trait over-shadows the positive characteristics of a person. It’s how negative ratings of one quality can easily cross over to judgments of other attributes.

For example, here’s a beautiful and attractive woman. She works hard, has a good heart, and has talent in singing and playing the guitar. Although the woman is kindhearted, is a knockout, and has superior skill in music, they view her as stupid. Therefore, they may also view her as unattractive and untalented.  All it takes is an unfavorable rating of one characteristic to influence lower scores of other qualities.

All It Takes is One Negative Characteristic

What happens is that people jump to conclusions about a person too quickly, based only on one imperfection. As a result, they end up wrongly judging the individual.

Other examples of The Horns Effect are when people judge a group based on the behavior of a few bad apples. Therefore, they think that overweight people are lazy and have no willpower. Blondes are dumb, blacks are thugs, whites are racist, and poor people are bums- you get the picture.

The problem is that we see something we don’t like about a person or a particular member of a group. We then go on judging them from our own unfavorable view. This only determines our attitude and behavior toward them. Consequently, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when they push back. Therefore it reinforces our negative attitudes that their bad traits are connected to all other characteristics.

This is what happens when a person is bullied for so long. They finally get fed up and react out of emotion, which only reinforces the attitudes of others. People see the target as overreacting, overly sensitive, or downright crazy and unhinged.

The Horns Effect Labels Targets Unjustly

The Horns Effect causes people to have “selective attention.” They see one undesirable trait and form an opinion of the whole person based on that one single characteristic. It’s an “all-or-nothing” mentality- black or white thinking with no room for the grey. It’s the idea that people are either good or bad and nothing in between. Bullies and their followers refuse to realize that positive and negative coexist.

This is only a stereotype. And bullies and their sheep are either unable to or refuse to go beyond that stereotype. Sadly, they become prejudiced against the target. They judge the target based on a first impression she gave and refuse to give her a “second chance,” which only consolidates the bias. They continue to assume the person is evil and treat them harshly or unfairly.

For example, if something comes up missing, people will automatically presume the target to be the thief who took it.

Selective Empathy

The victim will then become defensive (as every action produces a reaction).

Here’s another example: When things go wrong, people tend to cut everyone else- anyone else, except the target, some slack. They,ll assume that things were only out of their control. If they were within the person’s control, others pass it off that “everyone makes mistakes.”

With the target, on the other hand, people will only view that person’s every action with distrust.  The popular belief will be that the person caused the mishap deliberately or had an agenda. Sadly, people do this subconsciously.

If anyone else is late for class or work, people will only think, “Oh, traffic must have been bad.” “Maybe so-and-so had a stressful morning.”

Singled Out

On the other hand, how will they act if the target, whom they dislike, does the same thing? People will only think, “As usual, the idiot can’t get their shit together.” Or that “she’s just hell-bent on bending the rules.” Or worse, “she has no respect for authority.”

This is known as confirmation bias, when we search for and “find” evidence that proves our opinions of the unfortunate target. Then, we discount or rationalize proof that doesn’t support our views. In short, people judge everything the target does.

Understand that people have a psychological need to “be right” about a person. It’s what leads bystanders and others around the target to assume that any gossip about them is true. And this occurs despite a complete lack of evidence.

Whereas, if the person isn’t the target, people won’t believe any accusation of wrongdoing. They’ll only ignore it, even if there’s a mountain of evidence to back it up.

The Horns Effect Leads to Bias and Predjudice

The Horns Effect leads teachers and supervisors to disqualify people who are well-deserving of and qualified for awards. They are so biased that they’ll select someone who isn’t. And people will punish the target for a particular behavior while overlooking the same behavior in anyone else. And their personal dislike, disrespect and hatred of the target will influence this.

Moreover, others won’t recognize any improvement or positive change in the target. If they do, they won’t believe it will last. They’ll only see it as, “Oh, she’s just on her best behavior to impress others and get them off her tail. She’ll be back to her bitch-self soon enough. Just give her time.”

At the same time, people may not see poor and unacceptable behavior in someone other than the target. With anyone else, people will say, “Oh, so-and-so would never have done that! That sounds like something (the target’s name) would do!”

On the other hand, people will make excuses for someone else. “I’m sure Becky didn’t mean to do XYZ.” Or “Maybe Rhonda is just going through some things and that’s why she snapped and hit Christy with a baseball bat.”

The Horns Effect is the root of discrimination and prejudice just like the Halo Effect is the root of favoritism and partiality.

(Continued in Part two…)