reflexivity.

1. Attention to how a researcher’s assumptions, position, or actions affect the research process and its interpretations.

2. The property of a relation holding between every relevant element and itself.

3. A feedback relationship in which people’s interpretations or actions influence the situation they are responding to.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• researcher reflexivity
• methodological reflexivity

On the page

The field notes showed reflexivity about the interviewer’s influence.

Reflexivity led her to reconsider how the questions shaped the answers.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic. Forms: Usually uncountable; no ordinary plural. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.