The Halo and Horn Effects as Measures of�Health Stigma
DePalma, John
DePalma, John
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine whether perceived physical attractiveness influences implicit judgments of health-related behaviors, extending prior literature on the halo and horns effects into a health context. Using a within-subjects experimental design, 195 college students from the University of Vermont were recruited through the SONA participant pool and completed a Qualtrics survey. Participants rated conventionally more attractive and less attractive faces of men and women on their likelihood of performing health-positive, health-neutral, and health-risk behaviors, using a sliding scale from -3 to +3. Two repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted to analyze the effects of Target Attractiveness, Target Gender, and Behavior Type on participants� ratings. Results revealed significant main effects of Attractiveness, Target Gender, and Behavior Type, as well as significant two-way interactions between these variables. Specifically, more attractive individuals were rated as significantly more likely to engage in health-positive behaviors and less likely to engage in health-risk behaviors compared to less attractive individuals, demonstrating the halo effect. The inverse pattern was observed for less attractive individuals, consistent with the horns effect. No significant difference was found for health-neutral behaviors across attractiveness levels. Target Gender also moderated the influence of attractiveness on ratings. These findings suggest that appearance-based bias extends into health-related judgments and may have implications for the quality of care individuals receive in medical and mental health settings. Future research should seek more demographically diverse samples to improve the generalizability of these results.
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Date
1/1/2026
Student Status
Senior (Graduating in 2026)
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Poster
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Psychological Science
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College of Arts and Sciences
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Social Science