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

But I fear me greatly that this is idle; it is but the setting up of one personal equation over against another.

From Americanisms and Briticisms with other essays on other isms by Matthews, Brander

So absorbed was he, indeed, in his ideals and enthusiasms, that the "personal equation" had become very insignificant.

From Roland Graeme: Knight A Novel of Our Time by Machar, Agnes Maule

Every investigator necessarily has his personal equation or point of view.

From Following the Color Line an account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy by Grayson, David