egocentric predicament

a problematic condition arising from the assumption that each person’s experience is essentially private. The problem is commonly expressed in terms of one or more of the following propositions: (a) It is difficult to explain how any person could know anything about another person’s experience; (b) it is likewise difficult to understand how general knowledge of the external world is possible apart from one’s individual experience; and (c) given that experience is essentially private, it is difficult to understand how genuine communication between two people might be possible, since both the content and symbols of any communication will be similarly private. The egocentric predicament is often said to be an unavoidable consequence of the Cartesian self. See also solipsism.

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Psychology term of the day

May 9th 2024

nonadditive

adj. describing values or measurements that cannot be meaningfully summarized through addition because the resulting total does not correctly reflect the underlying properties of and associations between the component values. For example, if two variables a and b interact to influence another variable y, the addition of the separate effects of a and b will not equal the total effect since the contribution of the interaction needs to be included. Compare additive.