The reflexive self is the self considered as an object to itself. Its defining capacity is turning back on its own conduct — watching, appraising and adjusting what it does, as though from outside. This is what distinguishes a self from a bundle of habits: the person who pauses before replying, rehearses an apology or feels ashamed of a remark is treating themselves as something to be examined.
Where it comes from
George Herbert Mead made reflexivity the core of his theory. Because significant symbols carry the same meaning for speaker and hearer, a person can take the attitude of others towards themselves, and the self splits into the spontaneous I and the socially reflected Me. Charles Horton Cooley had already caught the same insight in the looking-glass self: we see ourselves in the imagined judgements of others, and respond to that reflection with pride or mortification. For both writers reflexivity is a social achievement, not an inborn faculty.
How it works
Reflexivity operates in a loop. The actor initiates conduct, imagines how it appears from the standpoint of particular others or of the generalised other, evaluates it against that standpoint, and modifies the next move. Socialisation supplies the standards used in the appraisal, which is why the same act can be a source of shame in one community and of pride in another.
Why it matters
Anthony Giddens extends the idea to modernity itself, describing self-identity as a reflexive project: where tradition once assigned biographies, late modern actors must construct and continually revise a narrative of who they are, drawing on expert knowledge, therapy, lifestyle choice and consumption. Freedom of self-definition thus arrives together with the burden of it, and with the ontological insecurity Giddens sees running through modern life.
For the UPSC answer
Build the answer as a sequence — Cooley's looking-glass self, Mead's I and Me, Giddens's reflexive project — to show reflexivity moving from a theory of socialisation to a diagnosis of modernity. Stress throughout that self-awareness is socially produced, since that is the interactionist claim being tested.
References & further reading
- Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner.
- Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press.