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Reader question: Please explain “halo effect” as in “the halo effect of Apple products”. My comments: Halo is a rainbow like circle of light. In religious paintings and pictures, we often see some holy figures, such as Jesus Christ or the Buddha wear a halo over their head and shoulders. People like Jesus Christ and the Buddha himself are hard to come by, to be sure. When we think of them, especially if you believe in their doctrines, we conjure up all sorts of nice things about them. That’s why people award them the halo in the first place. The long and short of it is, when we see someone wearing a halo, we tend to think well of them in every way. That’s halo effect, in a nutshell. American psychologist Edward Thorndike coined the phrase “halo effect” in 1920, to describe the situation where one’s positive attitude towards a person can lead to bias in their favor, or vice versa. Namely if we see some young man tall and handsome we often tend to think that he has a good moral character too, even though one’s physical makeup don’t necessarily have anything to do with one’s moral fiber. In terms of Apple, the gadget maker, its halo effect works in a similar way: Over the years, people have associated Apple with good quality, which is fair and square because the original Macintosh PC, among others, is a wonderful piece of work. | 
