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

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

Well, since it's difficult to keep the personal equation out, I suppose dancing and sailing about these islands on board the Estremedura is rather a wasteful life.

From For Jacinta by Bindloss, Harold

Certain psychological problems belong to the problems of other sciences, as, for example, that of the personal equation belongs to astronomy or that of color vision to the theory of light.

From Creative Intelligence Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude by Bode, Boyd H.