Mildness-hardship mistake
The Mild hardness errors ( english Leniency Severity error ) from the psychology is a cognitive bias , which in the judgment occurs by others. It describes the behavior of a person who, based on a negative or positive assessment of another person, bases any subsequent assessment on this judgment.
The mildness-hardship error is part of everyday diagnostics. One perceives one's fellow human beings in a distorted picture and does not approach them without judgment. This is called an assessment error .
Subdivision
Mild effect
If one always interprets the behavior of the person to be judged as positive or tends to gloss over their faults, then this is called the mildness effect. This would mean a preference.
Hardness effect
If one tends to interpret any behavior as a negative characteristic, one speaks of the hardship effect, since the person is usually disadvantaged and more likely to be punished.
Similar errors of assessment
The mildness-hardness error is similar to the halo effect and the primacy-recency effect . The difference to the halo effect is that there does not have to be a decisive reason or special character trait for a mildness-hardness error. A negative or positive overall picture is sufficient for this. The fundamental difference to the primacy recency effect is that no particular first or last impression has to be decisive for the behavior.
Avoidance
It has been found that the effect can be easily remedied in most cases by making the judging person aware of which people and to what extent they judge milder or harsher.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mild effect. In: Lexicon of Psychology. Spectrum, 2000, accessed June 30, 2016 .
- ↑ W.Stangl: Mildness-hardship error. In: Lexicon for Psychology and Education. 2016, accessed June 28, 2016 .
- ↑ Saal, FE, Landy, FJ: The mixed standard rating scale: An evaluation . In: Organizational Behavior and Human Performance . tape 18 , no. 1 . Elsevier, February 1977, p. 19-35 .