Sociology as a discipline can teach an individual how to look at oneself 'from the outside'. With which concept can this statement be associated?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Reflexivity
Option (1) Sociological imagination — Incorrect. The sociological imagination is the ability to make sense of the connections between the individual and society, the micro and the macro, the local and the global; C. Wright Mills links ‘personal troubles’ with ‘social issues’. It looks outward at society, not back at oneself.
Option (2) Sociological perspective — Incorrect. A sociological perspective is the general way sociology looks at things, for example seeing markets as social institutions rather than only as economic ones. It is a viewpoint on society, not the act of looking at oneself from the outside.
Option (3) Reflexivity — Correct. Sociology can show you what you look like to others and teach you how to look at yourself ‘from the outside’. This is called ‘self-reflexivity’, or sometimes just reflexivity: the ability to turn one’s gaze back towards oneself, critically, quick to criticise and slow to praise oneself.
Option (4) Critical thinking — Incorrect. Critical thinking means judging ideas and claims carefully, on reason and evidence. Self-inspection must be critical, but the name for looking at oneself from the outside is reflexivity, not critical thinking in general.
NCERT (2025-26): “What may be of even more interest to you is that sociology can show you what you look like to others; it can teach you how to look at yourself ‘from the outside’, so to speak. This is called ‘self-reflexivity’, or sometimes just reflexivity. This is the ability to reflect upon yourself, to turn back your gaze (which is usually directed outward) back towards yourself. But this self-inspection must be critical – i.e., it should be quick to criticise and slow to praise oneself.” |