The Windmills of Your Mind

Are you someone who “thinks things over?” Do you have conversations with yourself, silently in your head? If so, you are a practitioner of reflexivity. There is evidence that most people are reflexive and that there are (at least) four different kinds of reflexivity. This book uses a character from each of four "classic" American films to describe each kind of reflexivity.

There is evidence that most people practice one of these kinds of reflexivity more than the others. In this volume, I introduce thirty-nine members of the South Denver (Colorado) High School class of 1968. I describe the kind of reflexivity they each practice, their last occupation, educational attainment, and their social status. These data set the stage for asking how, in relation to the thirty-nine individuals, different kinds of reflexivity are related (or not) to the level of social status they attain.