outsideinsights
Breaking Every Halo, with Katja Hurt By Michelle Song, Associate Volunteer Development Manager
Katja winter hiking on Mount Si with The Mountaineers. Photo courtesy of Katja Hurt.
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ollowing the climbing death of a close friend on a nonMountaineers climb in 2018, Katjarina (Katja) Hurt and a group of climbers came together to uncover the thinking errors that culminated in their friend’s death. Their work led Katja to create Breaking the Halo: Empowering Students in Outdoor Education, a course in understanding how leaders’ decisions often go unquestioned due to their expert status, also referred to as the “halo effect.” Katja’s goal with this course is to explain how to recognize assumptions and help students confront heuristic traps that can lead to dangerous situations in the outdoors. She believes it could make a large difference in our safety if leaders and students are taught about halos and how to confront them. “I teach about the halo effect in honor of [Stephen’s] memory. I tell his story and share these lessons as much as I can because I believe he would want me to. He was the kind of man who would give his life for another in a heartbeat, and if it can make a difference and save even one life by changing some of the culture around these types of accidents, then it’s worth it.” Katja has been on Snoqualmie Pass’s ski patrol for over 14 years, is a fourth generation Mountaineer, and was recently appointed the Olympia Branch’s Leadership Committee Chair. Over the past three years, Katja has presented Breaking the Halo for numerous Mountaineers scrambling, climbing, and leadership development programs, as well as for executive leadership teams at various government and local agencies.
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mountaineer | winter 2022
We met with Katja to gain a better understanding of the halo effect and how we can avoid heuristic traps. Can you describe the halo effect for those who may not be familiar? American psychologist Edward Thorndike was the first to document how a person’s first impression can place a “halo” of goodness around them. Then Ian McCammon with the National Outdoor Leadership School wrote about heuristic traps. McCammon found that in outdoor groups, a “halo” is typically placed over the leader or the most experienced person. That person is interpreted to be all-knowing and flawless. This leads the group to concede their decision-making to the person upon which the halo is placed. The group becomes hesitant to call attention to the faults they may notice. Instead, they completely defer to the leader. This is dangerous. A halo is a red flag – an indicator of complacency. What is the connection between assumptions and a halo? We know that assumptions are not always bad. Some assumptions are natural, it’s pattern recognition. The assumptions where halos come into play are when we’re shortcutting our rational thinking. We jump from point A to point Z, thinking everything’s going to flow in between. Halo effects derive from assumptions. When we’re blind to the assumption, that’s where the halos begin to show.
