One way you form impressions of others is to construct a Gestalt, a general impression of a person that’s positive or negative. You identify a few traits about the person and then arrive at a judgment (“I like you” or “I don’t like you”). For example, audience members begin forming impressions of you the moment you begin a speech. Your clothing, posture, facial expressions, and opening remarks generate an overall impression that can instantly enhance or undermine your credibility.

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Gestalts form rapidly and require relatively little mental or communicative effort. This makes them useful for encounters in which you must make quick judgments about others based on limited information. Imagine you need to hire someone and have dozens of résumés to review. Although résumés don’t reflect the sum total of what the applicants are like, the Gestalts you create based on them will help you decide whom to interview (“This résumé is well crafted, has no typos, and highlights skills relevant to this job. I like her already!”).

A disadvantage of Gestalts is that they can distort how you interpret information you later learn about people. Think about someone for whom you’ve formed a strongly positive Gestalt. Now imagine discovering that this person cheated on his taxes. Because of your positive Gestalt, you may dismiss the significance of this behavior (“He probably made an innocent mistake”). This tendency is known as the halo effect.

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The counterpart of the halo effect is the horn effect, the tendency to negatively interpret the behavior of people for whom you’ve formed negative Gestalts. Call to mind someone you can’t stand. Now imagine that this person has cheated on her taxes. Chances are, you’ll chalk up her behavior to bad character or lack of values (“I knew she was a cheat!”).