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Reflexive Self or Reflexivity

  • In: Encyclopedia of Identity
  • Edited by: Ronald L. Jackson II & Michael A. Hogg
  • Subject:Self & Identity, Identity, Self & Identity

In the study of identity, reflexivity refers to the human capability of turning the attention of consciousness back upon itself—being aware of the fact that we are aware, thinking about thinking, or more mundanely, perhaps, providing accounts of our selves. The concept of the reflexive self was developed most extensively by the British sociologist Anthony Giddens in the 1990s, though other prominent social theorists with an interest in identity, such as Margaret Archer, Zygmunt Bauman, and Ulrich ...

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