Halo Effect
See also; List of cognitive biases
Ad hominem arguments work via the halo effect, a human cognitive bias in which the perception of one trait is influenced by the perception of an unrelated trait, e.g. treating an attractive person as more intelligent or more honest. People tend to see others as tending to all good or tending to all bad. Thus, if you can attribute a bad trait to your opponent, others will tend to doubt the quality of their arguments, even if the bad trait is irrelevant to the arguments.
Read more about this topic: Ad Hominem
Famous quotes containing the words halo and/or effect:
“The drama critic on your paper said my chablis-tinted hair was like a soft halo over wide set, inviting eyes, and my mouth, my mouth was a lush tunnel through which golden notes came.”
—Samuel Fuller (b. 1911)
“Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)