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An idiosyncrasy is an unusual feature of a person (though there are also other uses, see below). It can also mean an odd habit. The term is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity. A
synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are al ...
may be "
quirk Quirk or Quirks is having unconventional beliefs or manner, for example mispronouncing, in-jokes, clumsy and ditsy, and may refer to: * '' The Quirk'', a literary magazine * "Quirks", a song by Ultravox! from the album ''Ha!-Ha!-Ha!'' * 18376 Q ...
".


Etymology

The term "idiosyncrasy" originates from
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
', "a peculiar temperament, habit of body" (from ', "one's own", ', "with" and ', "blend of
the four humors Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers. Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 1850s ...
" (
temperament In psychology, temperament broadly refers to consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes. Some researchers point to association of temperam ...
)) or literally "particular mingling".


Linguistics

The term can also be applied to
symbol A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
s or words. ''Idiosyncratic symbols'' mean one thing for a particular person, as a blade could mean
war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
, but to someone else, it could symbolize a
surgery Surgery ''cheirourgikē'' (composed of χείρ, "hand", and ἔργον, "work"), via la, chirurgiae, meaning "hand work". is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a person to investigate or treat a pa ...
.


Idiosyncratic property

In
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
, an ''idiosyncratic property'' contrasts with a ''systematic regularity''. While systematic regularities in the sound system of a language are useful for identifying phonological rules during analysis of the forms morphemes can take, idiosyncratic properties are those whose occurrence is not determined by those rules. For example, the fact that the English word ''cab'' starts with a /k/ is an idiosyncratic property; on the other hand that its vowel is longer than in the English word ''cap'' is a systematic regularity, as it arises from the fact that the final consonant is voiced rather than voiceless.


Idiosyncrasy in religion

Among religious people, idiosyncrasy means behavior that is different from the usual, different from that which is generally seen as common, yet also as different social behavior that can be seen in the varieties of cults.


Medicine


Disease

Idiosyncrasy defined the way physicians conceived
disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
s in the 19th century. They considered each disease as a unique condition, related to each patient. This understanding began to change in the 1870s, when discoveries made by researchers in
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
permitted the advent of a "scientific medicine", a precursor to the
evidence-based medicine Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients". The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of t ...
that is the standard of practice today.


Pharmacology

The term
idiosyncratic drug reaction Idiosyncratic drug reactions, also known as type B reactions, are drug reactions that occur rarely and unpredictably amongst the population. This is not to be mistaken with idiopathic, which implies that the cause is not known. They frequently o ...
denotes an aberrant or bizarre reaction or
hypersensitivity Hypersensitivity (also called hypersensitivity reaction or intolerance) refers to undesirable reactions produced by the normal immune system, including allergies and autoimmunity. They are usually referred to as an over-reaction of the immune ...
to a substance, without connection to the
pharmacology Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous (from within the body) molecule which exerts a biochemica ...
of the drug. It is what is known as a Type B reaction. Type B reactions have the following characteristics: they are usually unpredictable, might not be picked up by toxicological screening, not necessarily dose-related, incidence and morbidity low but mortality is high. Type B reactions are most commonly immunological (e.g. penicillin allergy).


Psychiatry and psychology

In
psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial p ...
, the term means a specific and unique mental condition of a patient, often accompanied by
neologism A neologism Ancient_Greek.html"_;"title="_from_Ancient_Greek">Greek_νέο-_''néo''(="new")_and_λόγος_/''lógos''_meaning_"speech,_utterance"is_a_relatively_recent_or_isolated_term,_word,_or_phrase_that_may_be_in_the_process_of_entering_com ...
s. In
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...
and
behaviorism Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual ...
, it is used for the personal way a given individual reacts, perceives and experiences a common situation: a certain dish made of meat may cause nostalgic memories in one person and disgust in another. These reactions are called ''idiosyncratic''.


Economics

In
portfolio theory Modern portfolio theory (MPT), or mean-variance analysis, is a mathematical framework for assembling a portfolio of assets such that the expected return is maximized for a given level of risk. It is a formalization and extension of diversificati ...
, risks of price changes due to the unique circumstances of a specific security, as opposed to the overall market, are called "idiosyncratic risks". This specific risk, also called unsystematic, can be nulled out of a portfolio through diversification. Pooling multiple securities means the specific risks cancel out. In
complete market In economics, a complete market (aka Arrow-Debreu market or complete system of markets) is a market with two conditions: # Negligible transaction costs and therefore also perfect information, # there is a price for every asset in every possible st ...
s, there is no compensation for idiosyncratic risk—that is, a security's idiosyncratic risk does not matter for its price. For instance, in a complete market in which the
capital asset pricing model In finance, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is a model used to determine a theoretically appropriate required rate of return of an asset, to make decisions about adding assets to a well-diversified portfolio. The model takes into ac ...
holds, the price of a security is determined by the amount of
systematic risk In finance and economics, systematic risk (in economics often called aggregate risk or undiversifiable risk) is vulnerability to events which affect aggregate outcomes such as broad market returns, total economy-wide resource holdings, or aggreg ...
in its returns. Net income received, or losses suffered, by a
landlord A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant (also a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). When a juristic person is in this position, t ...
from
renting Renting, also known as hiring or letting, is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property owned by another. A gross lease is when the tenant pays a flat rental amount and the landlord pays for a ...
of one or two properties is subject to idiosyncratic risk due to the numerous things that can happen to real property and variable behavior of tenants. According to one macroeconomic model including a financial sector,Brunnermeier, Markus K. and Sannikov, Yuliy,
A macroeconomic model with a financial sector
(April 8, 2012). National Bank of Belgium Working Paper No. 236.
hedging idiosyncratic risk can be self-defeating as it leads to higher systemic risk, as it takes on more leverage. This makes the system less stable. Thus, while securitisation in principle reduces the costs of idiosyncratic shocks, it ends up amplifying systemic risks in equilibrium. In
econometrics Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. ...
, "idiosyncratic error" is used to describe error—that is, unobserved factors that impact the dependent variable—from panel data that both changes over time and across units (individuals, firms, cities, towns, etc.).


See also

*
Eccentricity (behavior) Eccentricity (also called quirkiness) is an unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive. Eccentricity is contrasted with no ...


References


External links

* {{Conformity Allergology Deviance (sociology) Inborn errors of metabolism Medical terminology Effects of external causes