Reflexivity

Reflexivity is the property or process by which a system, process, or agent refers to or affects itself. It describes self-reference or a feedback loop in which outputs influence inputs, and in social contexts it denotes awareness of the researcher’s or participant’s role within a study or phenomenon.

Etymology: the term comes from Latin reflexivus, meaning “bending back,” from reflectere, “to bend back.”

In mathematics and logic, a relation on a set is called reflexive if every element is related to itself (for all x, xRx). Reflexivity also appears in various formal senses in algebra and topology.

In philosophy, reflexivity concerns self-reference and forms of self-consciousness, including paradoxes and the limits of knowledge that arise when statements refer to themselves.

In social sciences, reflexivity refers to researchers’ recognition of their own position, assumptions, and potential influence on the research process and outcomes, as well as participants reflecting on their own practices. In anthropology and sociology, it is used to understand how social context shapes knowledge and how the act of knowing can change what is known.

In economics, reflexivity, a term popularized by George Soros, describes reciprocal influence between beliefs and market fundamentals, creating feedback loops that can move markets away from equilibrium.

In linguistics, reflexivity relates to forms and constructions where the subject and object refer to the same entity, such as reflexive pronouns (myself, themselves), and to reflexive binding phenomena in syntax.

In computer science, reflection (often discussed alongside reflexivity) refers to a program’s ability to inspect or modify its own structure and behavior at runtime.