Glossary List‎ > ‎

Somebody else's problem (SEP)

posted 10 Jan 2011, 17:52 by Jess Maher
Somebody Else's Problem (also known as Someone Else's Problem or SEP) is an effect that causes people to ignore matters which are generally important to a group but may not seem specifically important to the individual. Author Douglas Adams' description of the effect, which he playfully ascribed to a physical "SEP field", has helped to make it a generally recognized phenomenon. The label is now widely used to focus public attention on matters that might have been overlooked and, less commonly, to identify concerns that a depressed individual should ignore. It has also been employed as trivial shorthand to describe factors that are "out of scope" in the current context.[



Comments