In chemistry, stereospecificity is the property of a reaction mechanism that leads to different stereoisomeric reaction products from different stereoisomeric reactants, or which operates on only one (or a subset) of the stereoisomers.
In contrast, stereoselectivity is the property of a reactant mixture where a non-stereospecific mechanism allows for the formation of multiple products, but where one (or a subset) of the products is favored by factors, such as steric access, that are independent of the mechanism.
A stereospecific mechanism specifies the stereochemical outcome of a given reactant, whereas a stereoselective reaction selects products from those made available by the same, non-specific mechanism acting on a given reactant. Given a single, stereoisomerically pure starting material, a stereospecific mechanism will give 100% of a particular stereoisomer (or no reaction), although loss of stereochemical integrity can easily occur through competing mechanisms with different stereochemical outcomes. A stereoselective process will normally give multiple products even if only one mechanism is operating on an isomerically pure starting material.
The term stereospecific reaction is ambiguous, since the term reaction itself can mean a single-mechanism transformation (such as the Diels–Alder reaction), which could be stereospecific, or the outcome of a reactant mixture that may proceed through multiple competing mechanisms, specific and non-specific. In the latter sense, the term stereospecific reaction is commonly misused to mean highly stereoselective reaction.
Chiral synthesis is built on a combination of stereospecific transformations (for the interconversion of existing stereocenters) and stereoselective ones (for the creation of new stereocenters), where also the optical activity of a chemical compound is preserved.
The quality of stereospecificity is focused on the reactants and their stereochemistry; it is concerned with the products too, but only as they provide evidence of a difference in behavior between reactants. Of stereoisomeric reactants, each behaves in its own specific way. Stereospecificity towards enantiomers is called enantiospecificity.