The Halo Effect In Grendel's '

The story “Grendel” portrays our main character, Grendel, as a kind and naïve creature with a heart of gold. While growing up isolated, Grendel did not have many interactions between any human like creatures. Grendel’s lack of interaction with humans in due course stunts many social skills it will take Grendel to make companionship with the humans. According to research, humans are born with a sense of moral obligation to do what is right rather than wrong, but, “…we also need society and parental nurturing to intervene.” (Born good?), Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology, at Yale University explains. As the story progresses Grendel becomes increasingly fascinated with the humans or the Dane civilization. As he encounters the humans, he soon

realizes they are mean spirited men who take whatever they want through war and destruction. When Grendel finally comes face-to-face with the humans a curse has been set upon him, a curse of indestructability. With this curse the humans immediately fear Grendel and see him as a large and hideous creature, who will occasionally terrorize their civilization. Grendel’s physical attractiveness upon his first encounter with the Danes caused them to gain a perpetual bias in regards to Grendel. “Appearance is known to influence social interactions, which in turn could potentially influence personality development.” (Wolffhechel). In a study conducted within college students and faculty members, the physical attractiveness of an individual very much affects another’s perception of said individual. “Using data from ratemyprofessor.com, Felton, Mitchell and Stinson (Felton et al. 2004) found a correlation between faculty competence and attractiveness ratings, suggesting that students are influenced by physical attractiveness of faculty. In a follow-up study, Felton et al. (2008) found that the correlation between teacher quality and ‘‘hotness’’ (i.e., physical attractiveness of a given faculty) on ratemyprofessor.com were ‘‘roughly twice as high as those reported in Felton et al. (2004)’’ (Mendez). In another study of the effects of physical attributes towards on looking individuals, “[t]his perception of physical attractiveness has been shown to influence what people believe about others [6, 7, 11, 16]. One common perceptual error that emerges as a result of this influence is the halo effect”.

(Gibson 300). With this halo effect, biases that are made at Grendel’s character are based off his physical state and behavior. “…[T]o some extent, a bias to favor the self – where the self could be people who look like me, people who act like me, people who have the same taste as me – is a very strong human bias. It is what would one expect from a creature like us [humans] who evolved from natural selection, but it has terrible consequences.” (Born good?). As in the story “Grendel”, the Danes treat Grendel with no respect or open-mindedness, because of his appearance and immediately attack him. “Fontaine (2000) argues that defining personality becomes a dangerous task, and may lead to misconceptions through external effects that mistake personality with reputation…” (da Silva 188). The predisposed opinions the Danes have about Grendel will lead them to treat Grendel the way he was viciously dealt with throughout the story. These biased perceptions the Danes have towards Grendel, have consequences as Mr. Bloom speaks of. The consequences include repercussions from Grendel, as he learns to embrace his monstrous identity and kill the humans without hesitation nor remorse.

As humans have the tendency to box people into groups and categories, we are also guilty of adding human-like characteristics towards non-human objects to ease feelings of uncertainty, “…anthropomorphizing the appearance and interaction design of a robot can help people understand the robot’s functionality and satisfy their motivation for social connection” (Tang 494) Research done by S. Woods and his team of researchers have discovered appearance does affect the treatment of certain individuals, “[t]hey presented children with pictures of robots exhibiting a machine-like appearance and others with a human-like appearance; the children judged the machine-like robots as friendly and the human-like robots as aggressive.” (Tang 495). Biased opinions can be formed within the first encounter of meeting. These bias opinions formed towards people have another effect on these individuals themselves, “…there is an influence of personality traits on self-perception of appearance, for example, associations between neuroticism and a tendency to experience negative emotional states can influence a more negative body image (Swamietal.,2013) …” (da Silva 188). A negative self-image in turn can affect ones’ moral development, further leading to immoral filled tendencies.
Self-perception will play a large role in the development of an individual’s moral progression.

We as humans tend to act how we are perceived, and the same goes for a creature with consciousness as Grendel’s. For example, a cheerleader will typically be labelled “pretty but dumb”, and vice versa for “geeks” or “nerds”. “We tend to evaluate others on their appearance and then move on to treat and interact with them based on these first impressions.” (Wolffhechel 1). With this characterized generalization made towards humans, individuals tend to opt out of disproving these denunciations, willing allowing others to believe what they would like. Self-body image is influenced by many things, “Cash (2004) mentions that the body image develops based on personal experiences, physical characteristics, culture, and personality attributes. However, appearance is dynamic and changes throughout life, being influenced by genetics, nutrition, health, illness, medical, and surgical interventions (Allport, 1966; Harris, 1997).” (da Silva 188). The traits we have affect our social interaction with others as they judge us and view us. In the story, Grendel has an idea of the person he wants to become, but the external forces, the Danes, have a large impact on him, molding him into the “monster” they want him to become. The views the Danes share about Grendel, in the long run will make Grendel see himself as a monstrous creature. “Moreover, while these moral aspects can be theoretically

distinguished, and while people can be better or worse in either one of them, characteristic of a good moral person is that these aspects are integrated into a coherent whole and part of a person’s self-perception.” (Schinkel). Morals root from the growth and development of every individual person, meaning every person’s morals can differ. Moral progression and development comes from internal change. These internal changes can however be affected by outer processes/forces. As psychologist and professor Philip Zimbardo describes it “…[T]he world is, was, will always be filled with good and evil, because good and evil is the yin and yang of the human condition.” (Zimbardo). As the lines between good and evil are separated by a very fine line, the transition Grendel gradually converges into being a creature of evil. Decision making, moral reasoning along with moral intuition are intertwined with one another. “… personal and environmental factors impact on decision makers’ ability to recognize a moral issue, sharpening or hampering the whole ethical decision-making process (Hunt and Vitell 1986; Jones 1991).” (Zollo 683). As Grendel continues throughout the story, a look into his moral decision making changes from wanting what is best for himself and others to more egocentric decisions, that will benefit him. According to research, ‘‘people generate moral judgments by consciously reasoning over the principles they articulate in moral justifications…’’ (Zollo 684). In Grendel’s case, he will justify his violent actions against the Danes because of the treatment the Danes have given him. “In conclusion our results confirm the impact facial features have on first impressions and that people generally agree on how to evaluate some aspects of personality based on a face, even though these evaluations often are far from the self-measured personality traits… We believe that appearance has an impact on personality development, since social interactions are such a monumental part of our lives.” (Wolffhechel 7). Meaning, ultimately, Grendel’s moral decision making was in part influenced by the Dane’s attitude towards Grendel, upon their first initial meeting. “…[A]ffects and emotions represent a significant element of analysis in moral judgment and ethical decision-making research, both in the psychological field and the managerial one…” (Zollo 687). Moral decision making in a large portion is due to any influential individual with an advanced social position. As we are able to pick and choose individually what is right or wrong, influences such as persons we see with great admiration or high social status, can disturb how we behave and corrupt the development of moral processes.

Works Cited
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