Personal equation
The termpersonal equation,in 19th- and early 20th-centuryscience,referred to the idea that different observers have different reaction times, which can introducebiaswhen it comes tomeasurementsandobservations.[1]
Astronomy
[edit]
The term originated inastronomy,when it was discovered that numerous observers making simultaneous observations would record slightly different values (for example, in recording the exact time at which astarcrossed the wires of areticulein atelescope), some of which were of a significant enough difference to afford for problems in larger calculations.[2] The existence of the effect was first discovered when, in 1796, theAstronomer RoyalNeville Maskelynedismissed his assistant Kinnebrooke because he could not better the error of his observations relative to Maskelyne's own values.[3]The problem was forgotten and only analysed two decades later byFriedrich Wilhelm BesselatKönigsberg ObservatoryinPrussia.Setting up an experiment to compare the values, Bessel and an assistant measured the times at which several stars crossed the wires of a reticule in different nights. Compared to his assistant, Bessel found himself to be ahead by more than a second.
In response to this realization, astronomers became increasingly suspicious of the results of other astronomers and their own assistants and began systematic programs to attempt to find ways to remove or lessen the effects. These included attempts at the automation of observations (appealing to the presumedobjectivityof machines), training observers to try to avoid certain known errors (such as those caused by lack ofsleep), developing machines that could allow multiple observers to make observations at the same time, the taking of redundant data and using techniques such as themethod of least squaresto derive possible values from them, and trying to quantify the biases of individual workers so that they could be subtracted from the data.[4]It became a major topic inexperimental psychologyas well, and was a major motivation for developing methods to deal witherrorin astronomy.
James and Jung
[edit]William Jameshelped move the concept of the personal equation from astronomy to social science, arguing that theoretical preconceptions and personal knowledge could lead investigators to wild interpretations based largely on their own personal equations.[5]
Carl Jungtook up the idea in his bookPsychological Types,arguing that in psychology "one sees what one can best see oneself".[6]He continued to wrestle in later writings with the problems of psychological solipsism andinfinite regressthis potentially posed,[7]and considered every therapist should have at least a good working knowledge of his or her own personal equation. [8]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^Canales, Jimena (2009).A Tenth of a Second: A History.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 5.ISBN9780226093192.
- ^Schaffer, Simon(1988). "Astronomers Mark Time: Discipline and the Personal Equation".Science in Context.2:101–131.Bibcode:1988SciCo...2..115S.doi:10.1017/S026988970000051X.S2CID143806270.
- ^Duncombe, R. L. (1945). "The Equation of Time in Astronomy".Popular Astronomy.53:2.
- ^Schaffer
- ^Shamdasani, Sonu (2007).Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology.pp. 34–6.
- ^Quoted in Shamdasani, p. 75
- ^Shamdasani, pp. 76–83
- ^Shamdasani