Halo Effect and Cognitive Bias: The Impact of Skin Tone and Facial Dominance on Trait Attribution

Abstract

The halo effect, an individual’s tendency to form an overall impression based on specific traits, has not been widely explored within South Asian culture. The study examined this cognitive bias by assessing how university students attribute traits to others based on race, skin tone and dominant features. The study sample comprised of 223 university students aged 18-30 years.  The study used an online survey. Participants were asked to rate the 64 photographs of Indian and Western individuals with equal ratio of dark and fair faces that were further categorized into dominant and non-dominant faces. The findings revealed that participants assigned more positive and less negative attributes to western faces than Indian faces. Indian and western faces with light skin tones were assigned more positive attributes than Indian and Western faces with dark skin tones. Also, participants assigned more positive attributes to Western faces with fair and dark skin tones in contrast to Indian faces with light and dark skin tones. Furthermore, within dark and fair skin tones of both Indians and Westerners the participants gave more positive attributes to individuals with dominant features than to those with non-dominant faces. In contrast to Indian faces with dark and light skin tones and dominant and non-dominant features, Western faces with light and dark skin tones and dominant and non-dominant features were attributed more positive traits and less negative traits. This study concluded that participants attributed more positive traits to Westerners than to Indians based on race, skin tones and facial features revealing a cognitive bias in our society.

Keywords: Indians, westerners, positive attributes, dominant features, skin tone