According to Wikipedia, “the halo effect is a cognitive bias which can prevent someone from accepting a person […] on the sum of all objective circumstances at hand.” In other words, if a person likes some first impression of another, the person will make assumptions about other, still unknown properties, behaviors, or habits of that other person.
In a world of identically wired humans, this wouldn’t be much of a problem. With growing experience, a person would learn and become better at deriving a whole person’s qualities from first impressions.
Add neurodiversity to this, and the situation becomes complicated.
Through hyperfocus, hypersensitivity, masking, and sensory overload, an Aspie can very well have a profile that defies all experience of “normal” people.
Some Aspies, for example, are extraordinarily eloquent. They develop very sophisticated language even very early on, and can deliver impressive statements, speeches, or interviews. Now the halo effect might convince the hiring manager that this candidate will be a great sales person – because that’s what the hiring manager’s experience says. It might well be however, that this Aspie has a very hard time speaking in front of more than one person.
The result can be great disappointment on all sides, a bad hiring decision, an experience of being a misfit – yet again.
It can be a great exercise in openness to bear the uncertainty and in patience to give the encounter enough time to get to know the actual person with more breadth, before any decision or judgement.
This can obviously seem cumbersome in a stressful, fast-paced, or impatient world.