Comments on the Measurement of Halo

Abstract

The most frequently used measures of halo are based on interdimension correlations (the correlation, or r, measure) or within-ratee variability across dimensions (the standard deviation, or SD, measure). Pulakos, Schmitt, and Ostroff argued that the r measure is conceptually appropriate and demonstrated that the SD measure does not always yield results consistent with the r measure. They therefore concluded that the SD measure should not be used. This article critiques the r measure, responds to criticisms of the SD measure, and describes conditions under which halo effects can occur and (a) both measures can be obtained, (b) one of the measures can be obtained, but the other measure either cannot be obtained or should not be used, and (c) neither measure can be obtained. Thus neither measure is uniformly superior to the other. It is therefore recommended that both measures be obtained when possible and when there is no basis for selecting one over the other.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Cooper, W. H. (1981). Ubiquitous halo. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 218-244.

Fisicaro, S. A. (1988). A reexamination of the relation between halo error and accuracy. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 239-244.

Fisicaro, S. A. , & Lance, C. E. (1990). Implications of three causal models for the measurement of halo error. Applied Psychological Measurement, 14, 419-429.

King, L. M. , Hunter, J. E. , & Schmidt, F. L. (1980). Halo in a multidimensional forced-choice performance evaluation scale. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 507-516.

Lamiell, J. T. , Foss, M. A. , & Cavenee, P. (1980). On the relationship between conceptual schemes and behavior reports: A closer look. Journal of Personality, 48, 54-73.

Nathan, B. R. (1986). The halo effect: It is a unitary concept! A reply to Fox et al. (1983). Journal of Occupational Psychology, 59, 41-44.

Pulakos, E. D. , Schmitt, N. , & Ostroff, C. (1986). A warning about the use of a standard deviation across dimensions within ratees to measure halo. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 29-32.

Robbins, S. P. (1989). Organizational behavior (4th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Rugg, H. (1922). Is the rating of human character practicable? Journal of Educational Psychology, 13, 30-42.

10.

Saal, F. E. , Downey, R. G. , & Lahey, M. A. (1980). Rating the ratings: Assessing the psychometric quality of rating data. Psychological Bulletin, 88, 413-428.

11.

Thorndike, E. L. (1920). A constant error in psychological ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 4, 25-29.

12.

Vance, R. J. , Kuhnert, K. W. , & Farr, J. L. (1978). Interview judgments: Using external criteria to compare behavioral and graphic scale ratings. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 22, 279-294.

13.

Wells, F. L. (1907). A statistical study of literary merit. Archives of Psychology, 1(7).