Author Identifier (ORCID)
Giselle Woodley: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7521-5001
Harrison W. See: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7349-0077
Sian Tomkinson: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8292-106X
Stephanie Milford: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8754-7831
Abstract
Research topics involving sex, sexuality or sexual content online including pornography, are often considered sensitive or contentious. These topics can evoke strong attitudes, values, beliefs, biases, and potential prejudices from researchers themselves. As such, it is ethically imperative to identify and critically examine one's own perspectives in relation to the research on such topics to ensure transparency, acknowledge the researcher's positionality, and prioritise participant perspectives. Reflexivity offers a valuable way to sustain critical reflection and engage with one's own position and assumptions towards the topic in question. This paper offer a vulnerable exploration and reflection on the reflexive process within a collaborative group dynamic. The paper articulates a framework via a series of structured steps intended to support balanced reflexive inquiry when conducting contentious or sensitive research, offering a path forward to conducting ethical collaborative reflexive practice.
Keywords
Reflexivity, sensitive research, researcher bias, positionality, collaborative inquiry, research ethics
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
6-1-2026
Volume
14
Publication Title
Methods in Psychology
Publisher
Elsevier
School
School of Arts and Humanities
Funders
The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: The case studies used in this paper were part of a larger project funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project Adolescent perceptions of harm from accessing online sexual content (DP 190102435). Additional funding and support were received from the Ethical Digital Futures research group at ECU (Edith Cowan University).
Grant Number
ARC Number : DP190102435
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Woodley, G., See, H. W., Tomkinson, S., & Milford, S. (2026). Being reflexive about reflexivity: The ethical imperative of reflexive practice when engaging in sensitive and contentious research. Methods in Psychology, 14, 100253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.metip.2026.100253