Which bias occurs when ratings on each scale are influenced by the appraiser's overall impression of the employee?

• A. Halo effect
• B. Implicit personality theory
• C. Recency error
• D. Monitoring

Answer: (A)

At the heart of this item is how a manager's overall impression of an employee can spill over into ratings on every aspect of an appraisal. This is the halo effect: a single favorable (or unfavorable) impression colors judgments across multiple dimensions, so scores on different scales end up high or low together even if each area isn’t equally strong. For example, if a supervisor really likes an employee, they might rate teamwork, punctuality, quality, and initiative as high overall, simply because of that general impression rather than evaluating each dimension on its own merits. Other biases describe different patterns: implicit personality theory is about assuming traits go together and inferring one trait from another, recency error gives extra weight to the most recent events, and monitoring isn’t a bias at all. To guard against the halo effect, use structured, behavior-based rating criteria and involve multiple raters or objective measures so each dimension is assessed on its own evidence.