Self-awareness and reflective agency are closely related but distinct concepts.
Self-awareness concerns knowledge of oneself. It involves recognising one’s own existence, characteristics, actions, experiences, or mental states. A self-aware system can identify aspects of itself and distinguish itself from its surroundings.
Reflective agency concerns directing oneself. It is the capacity of a persistent self to evaluate, direct, and transform its own agency. Reflective agents do not merely recognise themselves; they can participate in shaping what they become.
The distinction is important because self-knowledge alone does not explain self-direction. A person may recognise a habit, belief, goal, or pattern of behaviour without changing it. Reflective agency begins when self-awareness becomes a basis for evaluation, direction, and transformation.
Self-awareness identifies the object of reflection. Reflective agency explains the capacity to act upon it.
In APSI, self-awareness concerns knowing oneself, whereas reflective agency concerns participating in the ongoing organisation of oneself.