You are a prosecutor preparing for a case that has garnered significant media attention. As the trial date approaches, you have several important matters to attend to. After asking the examiner the questions you prepared about the fingerprints, you ask him questions about the shoeprints found outside the crime scene. This witness is only trained as a fingerprint examiner but you hope that the jury will consider his opinion about the shoeprints to be that of an expert. If they do consider his shoeprint comments to be knowledgeable and reliable, this would be an example of:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The halo effect refers to the cognitive bias where the perception of a particular trait is influenced by the perception of the former traits in a sequence of interpretations. In this case, if the jury considers the fingerprint examiner's opinion on shoeprints as expert despite his lack of training in that area, it's because his expertise in fingerprints positively biases their perception of his credibility in another area.

You Are a Prosecutor Preparing for a Case That Has