personal equation

American  

noun

1. the tendency to personal bias that accounts for variation in interpretation or approach and for which allowance must be made.

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personal equation British  

noun

1. the variation or error in observation or judgment caused by individual characteristics

2. the allowance made for such variation

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Etymology

Origin of personal equation

First recorded in 1835–45

Example Sentences

There are experimentalists, like Picasso, and those who, like Braque, discover their personal equation and go on repeating it.

From Time Magazine Archive

Relations between the U.S. and Europe are complicated by the personal equation.

From Time Magazine Archive

It must be the physician's business to find out in each individual case, according to his own personal equation, just how he may be able to use at least some of it.

From Psychotherapy by Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)

For there is always the personal equation to be studied in a matter of this kind, and Elderkin had given much thought to the members of his crew.

From Beggars on Horseback by Jesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)

In the latter the personal equation, the skill and the loving, workmanlike fidelity of the individual toiler to his task impart a quality which dead mechanism can neither create nor supersede.

From Lace, Its Origin and History by Goldenberg, Samuel L.