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Original discussion thread: http://www.fastseduction.com/discussion/fs?action=9&boardid=2&read=102500&fid=8
What I'm talking about is a psychological phenomenon called “The Halo Effect.”
Here's a simple summary of how it works:
If a person has one good quality, it causes you to assume that this person is wonderful and has lots of other great qualities. The most common case of “filling in the blanks” is that when a person is physically attractive, we are more likely to assume that they have a great personality, intelligence, inner strength, and all sorts of other great qualities.
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Now for the readers who are geeky like me, here's a summary (credit to google and wikipedia) of some of the research and the history behind the development of this theory. If you want to cut to the chase and read about how this might affect your game, skip this section. This isn't something I made up out of nowhere, scientists have been researching it for close to 100 years.
The study indicated that we do not see others as a mixture of some good qualities and some bad qualities. Instead we seem to see each person as roughly good or roughly bad across all categories of measurement.
In 1946, Solomon Asch released a study showing that attractiveness is a highly salient trait, and has a powerful influence on our perception of other traits. We assume that all the other traits of an attractive person are just as positive and sought after.
In their 1972 study of judgmental bias, ‘What is beautiful is good’, Dion, Berscheid and Walster asked subjects to choose which personality traits applied to pictures of attractive and unattractive people. Their results showed that more positive traits were attributed to the attractive individuals, as compared to the less attractive individuals. This bias, or halo effect, was obtained consistently over a wide range of rated traits and personal qualities.
The halo effect is a cognitive bias, a "mental shortcut" or "cognitive illusion," that causes people to behave in ways that an unbiased observer would consider unjustified. Because our entire lives are permeated by these cognitive judgments, they affect the very fabric of our society.
In the 1970s, the social psychologist Richard Nisbett demonstrated that even if we were told that our judgments have been affected by the halo effect, we may have no awareness of when the halo effect influences us.
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Seduction students have a tendency to view attractive women as superior beings.
Rushing to the conclusion that a woman is a superior being will destroy your ability to project dominance. This will kill any pickup attempt.
I've seen this a lot of times. Just being in the presence of an attractive woman causes feelings of low self worth to start flaring up like crazy. Without even knowing a girl very well, the guy will start thinking about how she has more social resources than him, more wit and intelligence, and more power in the world. She must be loved by everyone around her. She must come from a really great family. She must have way better guys beating down her door.
Of course it's possible that these things could be true. However, it's just as possible that she may be new in town with no social resources, be of lower intelligence, from a broken home and lonely because she sabotages all of her relationships.
Notice I just used the cognitive bias of the Halo Effect, and also it's reverse, “The Devil Effect.”
Another possibility is that she may have lots of social resources, be loved by some people but disliked by others, have very high wit and intelligence, and be from a lousy family.
How can you tell? You must wait to find out, draw your conclusions slowly, and not start assuming all good things or all bad things right away.
My suggestion would be to read a person's actions the course of a long time, slowly creating a rich, nuanced picture of this person. Once this picture is complete, you can filter her into someone you should have a sex-only relationship with, be in a committed relationship with, avoid completely, or become a casual acquaintance of.
Of course women intuitively know that a lot of people are subject to the snap judgments of the halo effect. They have ways of using this to gain power over men that they would not be able to gain if he knew the truth about her having some positive qualities and some negative qualities. Women always put their “best foot forward” when it comes to dating, because if she can get a man emotionally invested early, she can get him to help clean up some of her other messes later.
Guys who haven't had sex with many women overestimate the sexual prowess of attractive women, and the value of having these women in their lives.
I can't stress enough that you must evaluate a woman in a holistic way before you decide to put a lot of effort into her.
You might not know exactly what you're looking for in a woman yet, but start with 3 simple areas to pay attention to.
1. Social value
This area I'm calling social value is basically a combination of physical attractiveness, physical presentation, and social context.
If a girl is attractive and well dressed, this is something most guys will notice right away. For many guys, this is really the only thing they look at. They see a hot chick with tits and ass nicely displayed, and that's it, they get all GOO-GOO GA GA.
There's a lot of women out there who are great at projecting social value. They know how to look their best and surround themselves with people that make them seem super cool. They know that most guys (especially inexperienced guys) are suckers for this, and in many cases, men will not even look at these next 2 areas.
If you're new at this and the Halo Effect is having it's way with your brain, there's a tendency to think all hot chicks will give you a great sexual experience. I've even heard some guys say “Well she's really hot, so she must have been fucked by guys who are really good in bed, and think I might suffer by comparison.” This can make you feel even more intimidated in the situation, and that's not a good feeling.
Also, I should note that this “suffering by comparison” idea is useless speculation.
It's important to pay attention to a woman's sexual value when you're getting to know her.
Signs of high sexual value include:
Signs of low sexual value include:
3. Lifestyle value
It also comes into play if you're getting into a relationship with an attractive women. There are women out there who are ultra hot, but if you dated them for a few months, you'd be sucked into a black hole of disasters and problems. Some of these chicks are drug addicts, drama queens, needy, or super disorganized. It's not pleasant to be around. Other hot chicks are positive, accomplished, and great to be around.
It can be hard to tell at the beginning, because sometimes the girls with low lifestyle value make it look like they have high lifestyle value.
Most guys don't look closely at lifestyle value. They just go jumping in because the chick is hot, and then later they are bummed out because life is starting to suck. Or, in a ONS situation, they just put the girl on a pedestal right away, because she's hot, and in the process they completely turn her off and ruin the seduction.
My point is that you shouldn't jump to conclusions. You should suspend judgment and be open to new information. Form a balanced, accurate, nuanced impression of women you meet. If you stay open to all the information in front of you, you can form a more accurate picture, even on the first night. Also, your game will be far, far stronger, because women can tell when you're totally sold on them, and it gets boring for them. They'd rather have a guy who they have to win over.
I know there's plenty of pickup tricks where you act like you're not totally sold yet, and she's going to have to work to win you over. While you use these techniques you may be saying your head, “Wow! I'd do anything to nail this girl!” That's not really what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about being TRULY not sold yet. It's not an act, it's reality. Of course this will be a stronger way to game than if you were just acting and using a few pickup tricks.
When I think back on times when I've had same day lays and then built them into great long term fuck-buddy relationships, I remember thinking to myself “This chick is hot, I want to bang her. I'm not sure what else is up with her. She's got a few promising qualities, and a few issues. It's probably worth hitting it a few times and seeing where it goes.”
Women seem to be able to sense this vibe. It's like I'm optimistic but not totally convinced yet, but there's enough attraction between us that I can escalate to sex using the normal procedures. This attitude has worked really well for me, and has helped me land quite a few girls who you would think are out of my league looks-wise.
Guys who have never had a long term relationship underestimate the problems that women have in their lives.
There's this guy I'm helping out, he just met a super hot russian chick about 2 months ago. He thought she seemed so perfect on first glance. We find out later that she's still seeing her ex, she's in the middle of a messy divorce (at age 22), she has 9 hour drug binges in dance clubs once a week, and she's got 30-40(!) orbiters who she's running around in circles. Wow! What a train wreck.
There's other girls who are just as hot who don't have nearly as many drawbacks.
What it comes down to is that everyone you meet will have their good qualities and their problems. If you recognize this going in, it will allow you to see women as human, and relate to them on a more human level. Women respond well to that kind of thing, especially if they have been getting treated weird by people under the influence of the Halo Effect. They're probably sick of it.
Guys who have never had women as fuck-buddies see women as angels who never sleep with random guys, and never use their sexual power to do treacherous things to the men who become interested in them.
The Halo Effect can have a strange effect on a man's sexual programming. This is a complex issue since it is also influence by our social programming and instinctual programming.
Some cultural and instinctual programming tells us to look for women who have little to no sexual experience. If you buy into this, women who have had lots of sex are less valuable than virgins or inexperienced women.
So when we encounter a woman who is attractive, and we start projecting other desirable qualities onto her, we might invent a sexual history for her in our head where she is a virgin or close to it. We may then communicate this expectation to the woman inadvertently, and she may decide to play that role whether it's true or not.
The relationship that ensues is built on a platform of delusions and lies.
Even in a ONS situation, having a woman acting less experienced than she is will diminish her sexual experience and yours.
Wouldn't it be better for everyone if men were less judgmental about women's sexual histories and women were not constantly trying to prove they are not sluts? That would make the world a better place and everyone would be happier.
So by now you probably get the idea of how the Halo Effect influences people who are learning pickup. Now I'd like to describe to you the process of improving at pickup and how the Halo Effect starts to lose it's power as your get better and better.
In the beginning, you might be making all the mental errors described above, but if you keep working on your game you slowly start to see the reality of the situation. Along the way, you may bang a few dozen girls. You might meet some hot chicks who are cool, some who are assholes, some normal looking girls who are awesome, and some who are lame.
You start to see that just because someone is attractive, doesn't necessarily mean you can draw any other conclusions about their character.
This can be followed by a period of being disillusioned. You were hoping that by studying pickup, you would meet your perfect super-model soulmate, all your problems would go away, and you would live happily ever after.
But after a few relationships, you see that is all hard work. Pickup is hard work. Having FBs is hard work. Relationships are hard work. Sometimes it's worthwhile work, and sometimes it is a drag.
Then you get to a point of acceptance. You know that you determine your own quality of life, and that while it's nice to have women in your life, it's not ultimately going to make or break you.
Then you've become grizzled, seasoned, hardened.
That's when the whole “non-reactive” thing starts to be real for you. You've seen it all. Nothing is shocking anymore. There's no girl out there who's going to turn you into a babbling puddle of delusions. Those days are gone.
If you get that far, your game will be stellar. It gets a lot easier and more enjoyable when you see women as human beings, not as symbols of your delusional hopes and dreams.
3 cheers for being disillusioned!!
Here's a little something I learned about when I was taking psychology classes. It seems like common sense at first, but when you consider the way this affects your game and your relationships, it's kinda scary.
The Halo Effect changes the way you see people. It creates a bias which causes you to see people in an incomplete or unrealistic way.
Edward L. Thorndike was the first to support the halo effect with empirical research. In a 1920 study Thorndike asked commanding officers to rate their soldiers. Thorndike found high cross-correlation between all positive and all negative traits.
Now let's boil this down a bit, and talk about how it could be affecting your game. These are my observations on how the Halo Effect manifests itself among seduction students who haven't had sex with many women, haven't spent any time around attractive women, and/or have lived in social isolation. These observations are based on my discussions and interactions with thousands of seduction students.
2. Sexual value
A woman may be smoking hot, but that doesn't necessarily mean she'll be good in the sack. She may have crazy hang ups or lots of baggage. Or she may rock your world, you just never know. In my experience, I haven't found that there's all that much correlation between women being ultra hot and being skilled in the bedroom. There are 9s and 10s out there who are sex ninjas, and there are others who are appallingly stiff.
Comfortable with kino.
Comfortable with her body.
Highly responsive to many different kinds of touching.
Withdraws or gets stiff when you touch her.
Mentions that she rarely has sex, hasn't had sex in months, etc.
Seems to be a man-hater type.
Unresolved history of sexual abuse or rape.
This one is simple. If you spend time around this woman, will your life be better or worse than if you never met her. I'm not just talking about relationships, I'm also talking about a ONS or casual fuck-buddy arrangement. There's some chicks that are such a drag, that it's really not even worth putting in 3 hours to bang them. But if you've never been with many women before, you wouldn't be able to recognize this.
During that initial meeting, when the fires of physical attraction are so hot that logical thought processes are greatly diminished, and it's easy to think that this woman could be the answer to all your prayers. Women are great on capitalizing on this and they know how to play that “angel” role. They practice it every day, and why shouldn't they. It gets them a long way in life because there's a lot of suckers out there.
