Science proves I'm not crazy (part 1)

Here's a little something I learned about when I was getting my psychology degree. It seems like common sense at first, but when you consider the way this affects your game and your relationships, it's kinda scary.

What I'm talking about is a psychological phenomenon called “The Halo Effect.”

Here's a simple summary of how it works:

The Halo Effect changes the way you see people. It creates a bias which causes you to see people in an incomplete or unrealistic way.

If a person has one good quality, it causes you to assume that this person is wonderful and has lots of other great qualities. The most common case of “filling in the blanks” is that when a person is physically attractive, we are more likely to assume that they have a great personality, intelligence, inner strength, and all sorts of other great qualities.

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Now for the readers who are geeky like me, here's a summary (credit to google and wikipedia) of some of the research and the history behind the development of this theory. If you want to cut to the chase and read about how this might affect your game, skip this section. This isn't something I made up out of nowhere, scientists have been researching it for close to 100 years.

Edward L. Thorndike was the first to support the halo effect with empirical research. In a 1920 study Thorndike asked commanding officers to rate their soldiers. Thorndike found high cross-correlation between all positive and all negative traits.

The study indicated that we do not see others as a mixture of some good qualities and some bad qualities. Instead we seem to see each person as roughly good or roughly bad across all categories of measurement.

In 1946, Solomon Asch released a study showing that attractiveness is a highly salient trait, and has a powerful influence on our perception of other traits. We assume that all the other traits of an attractive person are just as positive and sought after.

In their 1972 study of judgmental bias, ‘What is beautiful is good’, Dion, Berscheid and Walster asked subjects to choose which personality traits applied to pictures of attractive and unattractive people. Their results showed that more positive traits were attributed to the attractive individuals, as compared to the less attractive individuals. This bias, or halo effect, was obtained consistently over a wide range of rated traits and personal qualities.

The halo effect is a cognitive bias, a "mental shortcut" or "cognitive illusion," that causes people to behave in ways that an unbiased observer would consider unjustified. Because our entire lives are permeated by these cognitive judgments, they affect the very fabric of our society.

In the 1970s, the social psychologist Richard Nisbett demonstrated that even if we were told that our judgments have been affected by the halo effect, we may have no awareness of when the halo effect influences us.

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Now let's boil this down a bit, and talk about how it could be affecting your game. These are my observations on how the Halo Effect manifests itself among seduction students who haven't had sex with many women, haven't spent any time around attractive women, and/or have lived in social isolation. These observations are based on my discussions and interactions with thousands of seduction students.

Seduction students have a tendency to view attractive women as superior beings.

Rushing to the conclusion that a woman is a superior being will destroy your ability to project dominance. This will kill any pickup attempt.

I've seen this a lot of times. Just being in the presence of an attractive woman causes feelings of low self worth to start flaring up like crazy. Without even knowing a girl very well, the guy will start thinking about how she has more social resources than him, more wit and intelligence, and more power in the world. She must be loved by everyone around her. She must come from a really great family. She must have way better guys beating down her door.

Of course it's possible that these things could be true. However, it's just as possible that she may be new in town with no social resources, be of lower intelligence, from a broken home and lonely because she sabotages all of her relationships.

Notice I just used the cognitive bias of the Halo Effect, and also it's reverse, “The Devil Effect.”

Another possibility is that she may have lots of social resources, be loved by some people but disliked by others, have very high wit and intelligence, and be from a lousy family.

How can you tell? You must wait to find out, draw your conclusions slowly, and not start assuming all good things or all bad things right away.

My suggestion would be to read a person's actions the course of a long time, slowly creating a rich, nuanced picture of this person. Once this picture is complete, you can filter her into someone you should have a sex-only relationship with, be in a committed relationship with, avoid completely, or become a casual acquaintance of.

I help guys with this all the time in the 30/30 Club. Meet 30 women every 30 days for 12 months. Check it out here: http://bradp.com/30-30-club/