A hardening model that considers the dislocation reversal‐related mechanisms is applied to predict the mechanical behavior of low carbon (LC) and twinning‐induced plasticity (TWIP) steels under forward–reverse shear test with various pre‐strain levels. The predicted results are presented in terms of stress–strain response and texture evolution. It is shown that the proposed model, embedded in the visco‐plastic self‐consistent (VPSC) framework, well captures the changes in the reloading yield stress and the hardening evolution due to the strain path reversal. The contributions of the different mechanisms are also discussed.