Reflexivity (social theory)
Encyclopedia
Reflexivity refers to circular relationships between cause and effect. A reflexive relationship is bidirectional with both the cause and the effect affecting one another in a situation that does not render both functions causes and effects. In sociology
, reflexivity therefore comes to mean an act of self-reference where examination or action "bends back on", refers to, and affects the entity instigating the action or examination.
To this extent it commonly refers to the capacity of an agent
to recognize forces of socialization
and alter their place in the social structure
. A low level of reflexivity would result in an individual shaped largely by their environment (or 'society'). A high level of social reflexivity would be defined by an individual shaping their own norms, tastes, politics, desires, and so on. (See also: structure and agency
, social mobility
)
should apply equally to knowledge construction by sociology of scientific knowledge practitioners, or when the subject matter of a discipline should apply equally well to the individual practitioners of that discipline, for example when psychological theory should explain the psychological mental processes of psychologists. More broadly, reflexivity is considered to occur when the observations or actions of observers in the social system affect the very situations they are observing, or theory being formulated is disseminated to and affects the behaviour of the individuals or systems the theory is meant to be objectively modelling. Thus for example an anthropologist living in an isolated village may affect the village and the behaviour of its citizens that he or she is studying. The observations are not independent of the participation of the observer.
Reflexivity is, therefore, a methodological issue in the social sciences analogous to the observer effect
. Within that part of recent sociology of science that has been called the strong programme
, reflexivity is suggested as a methodological norm or principle, meaning that a full theoretical account of the social construction of, say, scientific, religious or ethical knowledge systems, should itself be explainable by the same principles and methods as used for accounting for these other knowledge systems. This points to a general feature of naturalised epistemologies, that such theories of knowledge allow for specific fields of research to elucidate other fields as part of an overall self-reflective process: Any particular field of research occupied with aspects of knowledge processes in general (e.g., history of science, cognitive science, sociology of science, psychology of perception, semiotics, logic, neuroscience) may reflexively study other such fields yielding to an overall improved reflection on the conditions for creating knowledge.
Reflexivity includes both a subjective process of self-consciousness
inquiry and the study of social behavior
with reference to theories about social relationships.
: that 'the situations that men define as true, become true for them.'
Sociologist Robert K. Merton
(1948, 1949) built on the Thomas principle to define the notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy
: that once a prediction or prophecy is made, actors may accommodate their behaviours and actions so that a statement that would have been false becomes true or, conversely, a statement that would have been true becomes false - as a consequence of the prediction or prophecy being made. The prophecy has a constitutive impact on the outcome or result, changing the outcome from what would otherwise have happened.
Reflexivity was taken up as an issue in science in general by Popper
(1957), who called it the 'Oedipal effect', and more comprehensively by Nagel (1961). Reflexivity presents a problem for science because if a prediction can lead to changes in the system that the prediction is made in relation to, it becomes difficult to assess scientific hypotheses by comparing the predictions they entail with the events that actually occur. The problem is even more difficult in the social sciences.
Reflexivity has been taken up as the issue of "reflexive prediction" in economic science by Grunberg and Modigliani (1954) and Herbert Simon
(1954), has been debated as a major issue in relation to the Lucas Critique
, and has been raised as a methodological issue in economic science arising from the issue of reflexivity in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
(SSK) literature.
Reflexivity has emerged as both an issue and a solution in modern approaches to the problem of structure and agency
, for example in the work of Anthony Giddens
in his structuration theory and Pierre Bourdieu
in his genetic structuralism.
Giddens, for example, noted that constitutive reflexivity is possible in any social system, and that this presents a distinct methodological problem for the social sciences. Giddens accentuated this theme with his notion of "reflexive modernity" - the argument that, over time, society is becoming increasingly more self-aware, reflective, and hence reflexive.
Bourdieu argued that the social scientist is inherently laden with biases, and only by becoming reflexively aware of those biases can the social scientists free themselves from them and aspire to the practice of an objective science. For Bourdieu, therefore, reflexivity is part of the solution, not the problem.
Michel Foucault's
The Order of Things
can be said to touch on the issue of Reflexivity. Foucault examines the history of western thought since the Renaissance and argues that each historical epoch (he identifies 3, while proposing a 4th) has an episteme
, or "a historical a priori", that structures and organizes knowledge. Foucault argues that the concept of man emerged in the early 19th century, what he calls the "Age of Man", with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant
. He finishes the book by posing the problem of the age of man and our pursuit of knowledge- where "man is both knowing subject and the object of his own study"; thus, Foucault argues that the social sciences, far from being objective, produce truth in their own mutually exclusive discourse
s.
has been an active promoter of the relevance of reflexivity to economics first propounding it publicly in his 1987 book. He regards his insights into market behaviour from applying the principle as a major factor in the success of his financial career.
Reflexivity is discordant with equilibrium theory, which stipulates that markets move towards equilibrium and that non-equilibrium fluctuations are merely random noise that will soon be corrected. In equilibrium theory, prices in the long run at equilibrium reflect the underlying fundamentals, which are unaffected by prices. Reflexivity asserts that prices do in fact influence the fundamentals and that these newly-influenced set of fundamentals then proceed to change expectations, thus influencing prices; the process continues in a self-reinforcing pattern. Because the pattern is self-reinforcing, markets tend towards disequilibrium. Sooner or later they reach a point where the sentiment is reversed and negative expectations become self-reinforcing in the downward direction, thereby explaining the familiar pattern of boom and bust cycles An examples Soros cites is the willingness of banks to ease lending standards for real estate loans when prices are rising, then raising standards when real estate prices are falling, reinforcing the boom and bust cycle.
The first sense of reflexivity in anthropology is part of social science's more general self-critique in the wake of theories by Michel Foucault
and others about the relationship of power and knowledge production. Reflexivity about the research process became an important part of the critique of the colonial roots and scientistic methods of anthropology in the "writing cultures" movement associated with James Clifford
and George Marcus
, as well as many other anthropologists. Rooted in literary criticism and philosophical analysis of the relationship of anthropologist, representations of people in texts, and the people represented, this approach has fundamentally changed ethical and methodological approaches in anthropology. As with the feminist
and anti-colonial
critiques that provide some of reflexive anthropology's inspiration, the reflexive understanding of the academic and political power of representations, analysis of the process of "writing culture" has become a necessary part of understanding the situation of the ethnographer in the fieldwork situation. Objectification of people and cultures and analysis of them only as objects of study has been largely rejected in favor of developing more collaborative approaches that respect local people's values and goals. Nonetheless, many anthropologists have accused the "writing cultures" approach of muddying the scientific aspects of anthropology with too much introspection about fieldwork relationships, and reflexive anthropology have been heavily attacked by more positivist anthropologists. Considerable debate continues in anthropology over the role of postmodernism
and reflexivity, but most anthropologists accept the value of the critical perspective, and generally only argue about the relevance of critical models that seem to lead anthropology away from its earlier core foci.
The second kind of reflexivity studied by anthropologists involves varieties of self-reference
in which people and cultural practices call attention to themselves. One important origin for this approach is Roman Jakobson
in his studies of deixis
and the poetic function in language, but the work of Mikhail Bakhtin
on carnival has also been important. Within anthropology, Gregory Bateson
developed ideas about meta-messages as part of communication, while Clifford Geertz
's studies of ritual events such as the Balinese cock-fight point to their role as foci for public reflection on the social order. Studies of play and tricksters further expanded ideas about reflexive cultural practices. Reflexivity has been most intensively explored in studies of performance, public events, rituals, and linguistic forms but can be seen any time acts, things, or people are held up and commented upon or otherwise set apart for consideration. In researching cultural practices reflexivity plays important role but because of its complexity and subtlety it often goes under-investigated or involves highly specialized analyses.
One use of studying reflexivity is in connection to authenticity
. Cultural traditions are often imagined as perpetuated as stable ideals by uncreative actors. Innovation is considered to change tradition, but since reflexivity is intrinsic to many cultural activities, it is part of tradition rather than being inauthentic. The study of reflexivity shows that people have both self-awareness and creativity in culture. They can play with, comment upon, debate, modify, and objectify culture through manipulating many different features in recognized ways. This leads to the metaculture of conventions about managing and reflecting upon culture.
The fact that individuals and social collectivities are capable of self-inquiry and adaptation is a key characteristic of real-world social systems, differentiating the social sciences from the physical sciences.
Reflexivity, therefore, raises real issues regarding the extent to which the social sciences may ever be viewed as "hard" sciences analogous to classical physics, and raises questions about the nature of the social sciences.
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, reflexivity therefore comes to mean an act of self-reference where examination or action "bends back on", refers to, and affects the entity instigating the action or examination.
To this extent it commonly refers to the capacity of an agent
Agency (sociology)
In the social sciences, agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. By contrast, "Structure" refers to the factors of influence that determine or limit an agent and his or her decisions...
to recognize forces of socialization
Socialization
Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies...
and alter their place in the social structure
Social structure
Social structure is a term used in the social sciences to refer to patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of the individuals. The usage of the term "social structure" has changed over time and may reflect the various levels of analysis...
. A low level of reflexivity would result in an individual shaped largely by their environment (or 'society'). A high level of social reflexivity would be defined by an individual shaping their own norms, tastes, politics, desires, and so on. (See also: structure and agency
Structure and agency
The question over the primacy of either structure or agency in human behavior is a central debate in the social sciences. In this context, "agency" refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. "Structure", by contrast, refers to the recurrent...
, social mobility
Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
)
Overview
In social theory, reflexivity may occur when theories in a discipline should apply equally forcefully to the discipline itself, for example in the case that the theories of knowledge construction in the field of sociology of scientific knowledgeSociology of scientific knowledge
The sociology of scientific knowledge ' is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity."...
should apply equally to knowledge construction by sociology of scientific knowledge practitioners, or when the subject matter of a discipline should apply equally well to the individual practitioners of that discipline, for example when psychological theory should explain the psychological mental processes of psychologists. More broadly, reflexivity is considered to occur when the observations or actions of observers in the social system affect the very situations they are observing, or theory being formulated is disseminated to and affects the behaviour of the individuals or systems the theory is meant to be objectively modelling. Thus for example an anthropologist living in an isolated village may affect the village and the behaviour of its citizens that he or she is studying. The observations are not independent of the participation of the observer.
Reflexivity is, therefore, a methodological issue in the social sciences analogous to the observer effect
Observer effect
Observer effect may refer to:* Observer effect , the impact of observing a process while it is running* Observer effect , the impact of observing a physical system...
. Within that part of recent sociology of science that has been called the strong programme
Strong programme
The strong programme or Strong Sociology is a variety of the sociology of scientific knowledge particularly associated with David Bloor, Barry Barnes, Harry Collins, Donald A. MacKenzie, and John Henry. The strong programme's influence on Science and Technology Studies is credited as being...
, reflexivity is suggested as a methodological norm or principle, meaning that a full theoretical account of the social construction of, say, scientific, religious or ethical knowledge systems, should itself be explainable by the same principles and methods as used for accounting for these other knowledge systems. This points to a general feature of naturalised epistemologies, that such theories of knowledge allow for specific fields of research to elucidate other fields as part of an overall self-reflective process: Any particular field of research occupied with aspects of knowledge processes in general (e.g., history of science, cognitive science, sociology of science, psychology of perception, semiotics, logic, neuroscience) may reflexively study other such fields yielding to an overall improved reflection on the conditions for creating knowledge.
Reflexivity includes both a subjective process of self-consciousness
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...
inquiry and the study of social behavior
Social behavior
In physics, physiology and sociology, social behavior is behavior directed towards society, or taking place between, members of the same species. Behavior such as predation which involves members of different species is not social...
with reference to theories about social relationships.
History
The principle of reflexivity was perhaps first enunciated by the sociologist William Thomas (1923, 1928) as the Thomas theoremThomas theorem
The Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology which was formulated in 1928 by W. I. Thomas :In other words, the interpretation of a situation causes the action. This interpretation is not objective. Actions are affected by subjective perceptions of situations...
: that 'the situations that men define as true, become true for them.'
Sociologist Robert K. Merton
Robert K. Merton
Robert King Merton was a distinguished American sociologist. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor...
(1948, 1949) built on the Thomas principle to define the notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy
Self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and...
: that once a prediction or prophecy is made, actors may accommodate their behaviours and actions so that a statement that would have been false becomes true or, conversely, a statement that would have been true becomes false - as a consequence of the prediction or prophecy being made. The prophecy has a constitutive impact on the outcome or result, changing the outcome from what would otherwise have happened.
Reflexivity was taken up as an issue in science in general by Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
(1957), who called it the 'Oedipal effect', and more comprehensively by Nagel (1961). Reflexivity presents a problem for science because if a prediction can lead to changes in the system that the prediction is made in relation to, it becomes difficult to assess scientific hypotheses by comparing the predictions they entail with the events that actually occur. The problem is even more difficult in the social sciences.
Reflexivity has been taken up as the issue of "reflexive prediction" in economic science by Grunberg and Modigliani (1954) and Herbert Simon
Herbert Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
(1954), has been debated as a major issue in relation to the Lucas Critique
Lucas critique
The Lucas critique, named for Robert Lucas′ work on macroeconomic policymaking, argues that it is naïve to try to predict the effects of a change in economic policy entirely on the basis of relationships observed in historical data, especially highly aggregated historical data.The basic idea...
, and has been raised as a methodological issue in economic science arising from the issue of reflexivity in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge
Sociology of scientific knowledge
The sociology of scientific knowledge ' is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity."...
(SSK) literature.
Reflexivity has emerged as both an issue and a solution in modern approaches to the problem of structure and agency
Structure and agency
The question over the primacy of either structure or agency in human behavior is a central debate in the social sciences. In this context, "agency" refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. "Structure", by contrast, refers to the recurrent...
, for example in the work of Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens is a British sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern contributors in the field of sociology, the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29...
in his structuration theory and Pierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher.Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location,...
in his genetic structuralism.
Giddens, for example, noted that constitutive reflexivity is possible in any social system, and that this presents a distinct methodological problem for the social sciences. Giddens accentuated this theme with his notion of "reflexive modernity" - the argument that, over time, society is becoming increasingly more self-aware, reflective, and hence reflexive.
Bourdieu argued that the social scientist is inherently laden with biases, and only by becoming reflexively aware of those biases can the social scientists free themselves from them and aspire to the practice of an objective science. For Bourdieu, therefore, reflexivity is part of the solution, not the problem.
Michel Foucault's
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
The Order of Things
The Order of Things
The Order of Things is a book by Michel Foucault first published in 1966. The full title is Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines...
can be said to touch on the issue of Reflexivity. Foucault examines the history of western thought since the Renaissance and argues that each historical epoch (he identifies 3, while proposing a 4th) has an episteme
Episteme
Episteme, as distinguished from techne, is etymologically derived from the Greek word ἐπιστήμη for knowledge or science, which comes from the verb ἐπίσταμαι, "to know".- The Concept of an "Episteme" in Michel Foucault :...
, or "a historical a priori", that structures and organizes knowledge. Foucault argues that the concept of man emerged in the early 19th century, what he calls the "Age of Man", with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
. He finishes the book by posing the problem of the age of man and our pursuit of knowledge- where "man is both knowing subject and the object of his own study"; thus, Foucault argues that the social sciences, far from being objective, produce truth in their own mutually exclusive discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
s.
In economics
Billionaire investor George SorosGeorge Soros
George Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
has been an active promoter of the relevance of reflexivity to economics first propounding it publicly in his 1987 book. He regards his insights into market behaviour from applying the principle as a major factor in the success of his financial career.
Reflexivity is discordant with equilibrium theory, which stipulates that markets move towards equilibrium and that non-equilibrium fluctuations are merely random noise that will soon be corrected. In equilibrium theory, prices in the long run at equilibrium reflect the underlying fundamentals, which are unaffected by prices. Reflexivity asserts that prices do in fact influence the fundamentals and that these newly-influenced set of fundamentals then proceed to change expectations, thus influencing prices; the process continues in a self-reinforcing pattern. Because the pattern is self-reinforcing, markets tend towards disequilibrium. Sooner or later they reach a point where the sentiment is reversed and negative expectations become self-reinforcing in the downward direction, thereby explaining the familiar pattern of boom and bust cycles An examples Soros cites is the willingness of banks to ease lending standards for real estate loans when prices are rising, then raising standards when real estate prices are falling, reinforcing the boom and bust cycle.
In anthropology
In anthropology, reflexivity has come to have two distinct meanings, one that refers to the researcher's awareness of and analytic focus on his or her relationship to the field of study, and the other that attends to the ways that cultural practices involve consciousness and commentary on themselves.The first sense of reflexivity in anthropology is part of social science's more general self-critique in the wake of theories by Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
and others about the relationship of power and knowledge production. Reflexivity about the research process became an important part of the critique of the colonial roots and scientistic methods of anthropology in the "writing cultures" movement associated with James Clifford
James Clifford
James Clifford is an historian and Professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Clifford and Hayden White were among the first faculty directly appointed to the History of Consciousness Ph.D. program in 1978, which was originally the only...
and George Marcus
George Marcus
George Marcus is an American anthropologist, founder of the journal and editor of the series.-Biography:Marcus served as the Joseph D. Jamail Professor at Rice University, where he chaired the anthropology department for 25 years...
, as well as many other anthropologists. Rooted in literary criticism and philosophical analysis of the relationship of anthropologist, representations of people in texts, and the people represented, this approach has fundamentally changed ethical and methodological approaches in anthropology. As with the feminist
Feminist anthropology
Feminist anthropology is an approach to studying cultural anthropology that aims to correct for a perceived androcentric bias within anthropology...
and anti-colonial
Subaltern Studies
The Subaltern Studies Group or Subaltern Studies Collective are a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and post-imperial societies of South Asia in particular and the developing world in general. The term Subaltern Studies is sometimes also applied more broadly to others...
critiques that provide some of reflexive anthropology's inspiration, the reflexive understanding of the academic and political power of representations, analysis of the process of "writing culture" has become a necessary part of understanding the situation of the ethnographer in the fieldwork situation. Objectification of people and cultures and analysis of them only as objects of study has been largely rejected in favor of developing more collaborative approaches that respect local people's values and goals. Nonetheless, many anthropologists have accused the "writing cultures" approach of muddying the scientific aspects of anthropology with too much introspection about fieldwork relationships, and reflexive anthropology have been heavily attacked by more positivist anthropologists. Considerable debate continues in anthropology over the role of postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
and reflexivity, but most anthropologists accept the value of the critical perspective, and generally only argue about the relevance of critical models that seem to lead anthropology away from its earlier core foci.
The second kind of reflexivity studied by anthropologists involves varieties of self-reference
Self-reference
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding...
in which people and cultural practices call attention to themselves. One important origin for this approach is Roman Jakobson
Roman Jakobson
Roman Osipovich Jakobson was a Russian linguist and literary theorist.As a pioneer of the structural analysis of language, which became the dominant trend of twentieth-century linguistics, Jakobson was among the most influential linguists of the century...
in his studies of deixis
Deixis
In linguistics, deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place...
and the poetic function in language, but the work of Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin was a Russian philosopher, literary critic, semiotician and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosophy of language...
on carnival has also been important. Within anthropology, Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
developed ideas about meta-messages as part of communication, while Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz
Clifford James Geertz was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology, and who was considered "for three decades...the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States." He served until...
's studies of ritual events such as the Balinese cock-fight point to their role as foci for public reflection on the social order. Studies of play and tricksters further expanded ideas about reflexive cultural practices. Reflexivity has been most intensively explored in studies of performance, public events, rituals, and linguistic forms but can be seen any time acts, things, or people are held up and commented upon or otherwise set apart for consideration. In researching cultural practices reflexivity plays important role but because of its complexity and subtlety it often goes under-investigated or involves highly specialized analyses.
One use of studying reflexivity is in connection to authenticity
Authenticity
Authenticity refers to the truthfulness of origins, attributions, commitments, sincerity, devotion, and intentions.Authenticity or Authentic may refer to:*Authentication, having passed the tests thereof...
. Cultural traditions are often imagined as perpetuated as stable ideals by uncreative actors. Innovation is considered to change tradition, but since reflexivity is intrinsic to many cultural activities, it is part of tradition rather than being inauthentic. The study of reflexivity shows that people have both self-awareness and creativity in culture. They can play with, comment upon, debate, modify, and objectify culture through manipulating many different features in recognized ways. This leads to the metaculture of conventions about managing and reflecting upon culture.
Reflexivity and the status of the social sciences
Flanagan (1981) and others have argued that reflexivity complicates all three of the traditional roles that are typically played by a classical science: explanation, prediction and control.The fact that individuals and social collectivities are capable of self-inquiry and adaptation is a key characteristic of real-world social systems, differentiating the social sciences from the physical sciences.
Reflexivity, therefore, raises real issues regarding the extent to which the social sciences may ever be viewed as "hard" sciences analogous to classical physics, and raises questions about the nature of the social sciences.
See also
- Experimenter effect
- Goodhart's lawGoodhart's lawGoodhart's law, although it can be expressed in many ways, states that once a social or economic indicator or other surrogate measure is made a target for the purpose of conducting social or economic policy, then it will lose the information content that would qualify it to play that role...
- Hawthorne effectHawthorne effectThe Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they know they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.The term was coined in 1950 by...
- Observer effectObserver effectObserver effect may refer to:* Observer effect , the impact of observing a process while it is running* Observer effect , the impact of observing a physical system...
- Lucas critiqueLucas critiqueThe Lucas critique, named for Robert Lucas′ work on macroeconomic policymaking, argues that it is naïve to try to predict the effects of a change in economic policy entirely on the basis of relationships observed in historical data, especially highly aggregated historical data.The basic idea...
- Phronetic social sciencePhronetic social sciencePhronetic social science is an approach to the study of social – including political and economic – phenomena based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, variously translated as practical judgment, common sense, or prudence. Phronesis is the intellectual virtue...
- Self fulfilling prophecy
- George SorosGeorge SorosGeorge Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
- Thomas theoremThomas theoremThe Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology which was formulated in 1928 by W. I. Thomas :In other words, the interpretation of a situation causes the action. This interpretation is not objective. Actions are affected by subjective perceptions of situations...
Further reading
- Archer, M. S. (2007). Making Our Way Through The World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Ashmore, M. (1989). The Reflexive Thesis. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
- Bartlett, S. J. and P. Suber (editors). (1987). Self-Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity, Dordrecht, Boston, and Lancaster, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
- Bourdieu, PierrePierre BourdieuPierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher.Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location,...
(1992). Invitation to a Reflexive Sociology. University of Chicago Press. - Bryant, C. G. A. (2002). 'George Soros's theory of reflexivity: a comparison with the theories of Giddens and Beck and a consideration of its practical value', Economy and Society, 31 (1), pp. 112–131.
- Flanagan, O. J. (1981). 'Psychology, progress, and the problem of reflexivity: a study in the epistemological foundations of psychology', Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 17, pp. 375–386.
- Grunberg, E. and F. Modigliani (1954). 'The predictability of social events', Journal of Political Economy, 62 (6), pp. 465–478.
- Merton, R. K. (1948). 'The self-fulfilling prophecy', Antioch Review, 8, pp. 193–210.
- Merton, R. K. (1949/1957), Social Theory and Social Structure (rev. edn.), The Free Press, Glencoe, IL.
- Nagel, E. (1961), The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation, Harcourt, New York.
- Popper, K. (1957), The Poverty of Historicism, Harper and Row, New York.
- Simon, H. (1954). 'Bandwagon and underdog effects of election predictions', Public Opinion Quarterly, 18, pp. 245–253.
- Soros, G (1987) The Alchemy of Finance (Simon & Schuster, 1988) ISBN 0-671-66338-4 (paperback: Wiley, 2003; ISBN 0-471-44549-5)
- Soros, G (2008) The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means (PublicAffairs, 2008) ISBN 978-1586486839
- Soros, G (2006) The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror (PublicAffairs, 2006) ISBN 1-58648-359-1
- Soros, G The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (PublicAffairs, 2003) ISBN 1-58643-217-3 (paperback; PublicAffairs, 2004; ISBN 1-58648-292-0)
- Soros, G George Soros on Globalization (PublicAffairs, 2002) ISBN 1-58648-125-8 (paperback; PublicAffairs, 2005; ISBN 1-52648-278-5)
- Soros, G (2000) Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (PublicAffairs, 2001) ISBN 1-58648-039-7
- Thomas, W. I. (1923), The Unadjusted Girl : With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior Analysis, Little, Brown, Boston, MA.
- Thomas, W. I. and D. S. Thomas (1928), The Child in America : Behavior Problems and Programs, Knopf, New York.
- Tsekeris, C. (2010). 'Reflections on Reflexivity: Sociological Issues and Perspectives', Contemporary Issues, 3 (1), pp. 28–37.
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