Difference between Objective and Subjective

Key Difference: Objective is not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudices; it is based on facts and, is unbiased. On the other hand, subjective is an opinion based upon a person feelings or intuitions. It is not based upon observation or reasoning. It comes more from within the observer than from the observations of the external.

The terms objective and subjective totally differ from each other. Anything or any statement that is not influenced by personal feelings and is unbiased is called objective. Whereas, anything or any statement that is described by the thoughts that are existing in the mind is called subjective.

Dictionary.com defines ‘Objective’ as:

Something that one's efforts or actions are intended to attain or accomplish; purpose; goal; target: the objective of a military attack; the objective of a fund-raising drive.
Being the object or goal of one's efforts or actions.
Not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased.
Intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings, as a person or a book.
Being the object of perception or thought; belonging to the object of thought rather than to the thinking subject (opposed to subjective).

Dictionary.com defines ‘Subjective’ as:

Existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought (opposed to objective).
Pertaining to or characteristic of an individual; personal; individual: a subjective evaluation.
Placing excessive emphasis on one's own moods, attitudes, opinions, etc.; unduly egocentric.
Philosophy. Relating to or of the nature of an object as it is known in the mind as distinct from a thing in itself.
Relating to properties or specific conditions of the mind as distinguished from general or universal experience.

Objective is many people’s point of views. Whereas, subjective is one person’s opinion.

The comparison chart of both the terms objective and subjective is listed below:

	Objective	Subjective
Meaning (BusinessDictionary.com)	Neutral (bias free), relating to, or based on verifiable evidence or facts instead of on attitude, belief, or opinion. Opposite of subjective.	Based on (or related to) attitudes, beliefs, or opinions, instead of on verifiable evidence or phenomenon. Contrasts with objective.
Metrics	Defy interpretation	Matter of Interpretation
Strengths	The measures of objectives work best in situation where all the workers or employees can be assessed directly and each worker’s performance can be meaningfully compared to another worker.	The measures of subjective are fine at allowing an administrator or a manager to exercise judgment about the worker’s performance in a complex manner.
Weaknesses	The measures of objectives fail when the administrators or managers agree with the complex processes into a single score that may not have much meaning in the real world.	The measures on subjective may fail if the worker relationship is sour and they may see a negative rating unfair.
Decision making	Usually yes	Usually no
Characterized	Previous experience is not characterized	Previous experience is surely characterized
Verify	Verified by mathematical calculations	Cannot be verified by mathematical figures (facts and figures)
Purpose	Any kind of balanced decision	When nothing concrete is at risk
Examples	Objectives on completion of the course, the trainees will understand the causes and prevention of fire. Objective lenses are shown in the table. Objective criteria and visualizing the process. Job wants to get through a course of study with the sole objective of obtaining a specific type of job. If you’re playing someone evil, you can’t make an objective moral judgment.	Subjective personal opinions all round. The nature of this type of research means that data is somewhat subjective. Your answer was subjective in some sense. How meditation relieves the subjective experience of pain. Travel is in some or other way is subjective to emotional experience.