According to Alfred Schultz, the basic difference between “objective” and “subjective” meanings of words or actions is the presence or lack of interpretation based on one’s lived experience.
‘Objective’ meaning lacks personal interpretations and is used as basis for expectations for situations that one has not experienced. Schutz postulates that subjects give ‘objective’ meaning to experiences of other people, as they are unable to interpret them from their point of view. This allows people to form predictions for what would happen if they are in a similar situation. There are some ‘objective’ meanings that are so universal that they are considered to be the expected outcome by society as a whole. Words would be one example of such expectations, in which the ‘objective’ meaning would be their exact dictionary definition (Segre, 2014). As such, a person who has not heard a slang term or expression before would be able to only interpret it based on the ‘objective’ meanings of the words in said term or expression.
A ‘subjective’ meaning, meanwhile, derives from someone’s lived experiences. By definition, all intentions placed into one’s own actions are ‘subjective’, as they are part of that experience. These may vary widely between people; however, it is common for individuals to assume their ‘subjective’ meaning is as clear to everyone else as it is to them (Segre, 2014). In the above example with slang expressions, the ‘subjective’ meaning would be whatever meaning is attributed to the words by the person saying them. Someone else hearing these same words may have an entirely different ‘subjective’ interpretation if they heard the same expression in a different context beforehand.
‘Objective’ expectations do not always match the ‘subjective’ reality that the subject experiences. For example, a person who has never had a romantic relationship before may form certain expectations about it from books, movies, and the stories of other people. This expectation would be their ‘objective’ view on what a relationship would be like. When they enter the relationship, they find it to have challenges and pitfalls that were not accounted for in their ‘objective’ expectation. Thus, they form their ‘subjective’ opinion, which they will then use to base their future relationship expectations on.
Reference
Segre, S. (2014). Contemporary Sociological Thinkers and Theories. Taylor and Francis.