INFLUENCE OF IRRELEVANT CUES AND ALTERNATE FORMS OF GRAPHIC RATING SCALES ON THE HALO EFFECT1

The major hypothesis of this study was that halo due to irrelevant characteristics could be reduced by giving raters the opportunity to separately rate the irrelevant characteristics. Thirty‐six non‐commissioned Navy officers participated in this study. Subjects were randomly assigned to one or four conditions: negative halo‐job related scales, negative halo‐job related and irrelevant scales, positive halo‐job related scales, and positive halo‐job related irrelevant scales. Subjects were required to read a hypothetical job description and then a narrative performance description of a specific ratee. They then were required to evaluate their assigned ratee on a set of graphic rating scales. The data partially supported the major hypothesis in that the graphic ratings based solely on job‐related scales in the negative halo condition contained greater halo than ratings based on a set of identical scales but which included, in addition, scales relevant to non‐job related characteristics. Reasons for the lack of statistical significance with respect to the positive halo condition were discussed.