Home / Concept of the Week / The halo effect
Concept of the Week · Episode 11
When one good impression of a person colours everything else you think about them. Once you think well of someone, their mistakes get explained away and their strengths get all the credit.
Explained by Professor Peter Kinderman, clinical psychologist · First published 29 September 2026 · Updated 29 September 2026
Edward Thorndike named it in 1920, in a paper called A constant error in psychological ratings. Officers rating the soldiers under them on separate qualities gave scores that moved together far more than the qualities themselves could explain: a man rated highly on one tended to be rated highly on all of them. In 1977 Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson showed students one of two videotaped interviews with the same lecturer, warm and friendly in one, cold and distrustful in the other. The students who saw him warm rated his appearance, mannerisms and accent more kindly, and insisted that his warmth had nothing to do with it.
The halo effect. If somebody has done something good, or you like them, or you have a lot of positive regard for them in one way, they can do nothing wrong. Peter calls it a heuristic, a sloppy way of thinking that everyone falls into from time to time, and his rule for it is simple and hard to keep: very, very bad people can do good things, and very, very good people can do bad things, and when a good person does a bad thing, call them out.
It runs through the whole episode, starting with Ed Miliband's TikTok street interview with Feroz Khan, which Peter is sure was not as impromptu as it looked. Hilary's version of the concept comes from a chat with her eldest: do not confuse someone's politics with their morals. And at the end of the episode Peter tests his own rule on himself. He really likes Andy Burnham, and he does not think Burnham's case for letting fans drink in view of the pitch at men's football is a good idea.
Hear it in context
The halo effect, Ed Miliband and Burnham on beer at the football
Once you think well of someone, they can do nothing wrong. The Concept of the Week is the halo effect, and it runs from Ed Miliband's street interview with Feroz Khan to Peter liking Andy Burnham very much and still disagreeing with him about beer at the football.
Edward Thorndike, in 1920. He found that officers rating soldiers on separate qualities gave scores that moved together far more than they should, so that a man rated highly on one quality was rated highly on the rest. He called it a constant error in psychological ratings.
Usually not. In Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson's 1977 study, students who saw a lecturer being warm rated his looks, mannerisms and accent more kindly than students who saw him being cold, and denied that his warmth had influenced them. Peter's word for it on the show is a heuristic: a shortcut everyone takes from time to time, mostly without noticing.
Judge the act, not the person. Peter's rule is that very good people can do bad things, and when they do, you call them out. It is also the test he sets himself at the end of the episode: he really likes Andy Burnham, and he still thinks Burnham is wrong about beer at the football.
The primary literature behind the idea, for anyone who wants to check it. Also on Wikipedia.
Kinderman, P. (2026). The halo effect. Concept of the Week, Experience: Analysing Newsmakers, episode 11, with Hilary Jeffs. https://www.experiencepodco.com/concepts/halo-effect.html
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Concept of the Week is a regular feature of Experience: Analysing Newsmakers, the weekly podcast in which clinical psychologist Professor Peter Kinderman and communications expert Hilary Jeffs take the news apart to see what is driving it. Peter picks a psychological idea most of us have half-remembered wrong and explains what it actually shows. New episodes every Tuesday. Where to listen.