You can find the word “self-confidence” in the vast lexicon of psychological terms. An important concept for sure, because it’s something we all want more of.
WHY?
Because people who possess self-confidence do better. People who are self-confident know what they want, go after it, and get it most of the time. Our heroes are self-confident.
The Oxford Dictionary defines “Self-Confidence” (noun) as: a feeling of trust in one's abilities, qualities, and judgment.
The American Psychological Association Dictionary elaborates: self-confidence = self-assurance = trust in one's abilities, capacities, and judgment. APA dictionary goes on: Because it is typically viewed as a positive attitude, the bolstering of self-confidence is often a mediate or end goal in psychotherapy.
Self-confidence has synonyms: self-assurance, inner strength, aplomb, positive self-image, self-reliance, fearlessness, sureness of oneself…
And Antonyms: insecurity, self-doubt, self-distrust, apprehension, misgiving, diffidence.
Peruse the internet. See “what” others think self-confidence is. You learn it depends on the source (Universities, Mental-Wellness Sites, Institutes, Churches, Self-Help Blogs, self-confident people, people without self-confidence, Wikipedia…). Internet consensus underscores a linkage between self-confidence and self-esteem.
Are Self-Confidence and Self-Esteem equal?
NO
Self-Esteem is: Oxford Dictionary (noun) confidence in one's own worth or abilities; self-respect. — If you compare this definition to self-confidence: a feeling of trust in one's abilities, qualities, and judgment. Differences arise.
Self-confidence is an “ability” term; self-esteem, a “personal worth” term. If you have limited abilities, you may still have high self-worth. (I can’t do this or that, but I still have self-respect.) As noted above, situations can arise where this distinction is important.
With regard to benefits, people who believe they can do things are likely to do them, and since satisfaction comes in doing: “a job well done” (I can do that), self-confidence promotes well-being.
Are people born with self-confidence?
“NO”.
Why?
Can you find self-confidence listed in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? (Note the Purple). “Esteem” terms develop after birth.
While it may be true that some people are born with strengths or deficits that could impact their self confidence, this characteristic is not present at the “get-go” of life.
Self-confidence is a socially derived characteristic. We learn about self-confidence from feedback. Feedback from ourselves, mostly from others. From parents, siblings, friends, acquaintances, employers, teachers, the world.
You never hear someone say,
“I’m worried about Johnny (who is 3 months old). Because Johnny seems to lack self-confidence.”
Instead, someone might say, “I’m worried about Johnny (who is 3 months old). Johnny just sits there and doesn’t seem to explore his world.”
When and Where and How does self-confidence learning start?
If you took a Semester-Long Child Psychopathology course, you would glean the following:
Self-confidence begins in infancy; however, what an infant construes as self-confidence is hard to dis-entangle from the mother’s (or primary caregiver’s) self-confidence.
Defining a few foundational terms is essential to understand the origins of self-confidence:
coherence (Cambridge Dictionary): …the situation when the parts of something fit together in a natural or reasonable way
predictability (Dictionary.com): …consistent repetition of a state, course of action, behavior, or the like, making it possible to know in advance what to expect…
assurance or to assure: (Merriam-Webster Dictionary): to make sure or certain…convince…to inform positively.
confidence (Dictionary.com): …the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something…
Self-confidence emerges and develops in infancy.
Healthy infant development rests on the caregiver meeting infant needs (for survival at first, for everything else as the child develops). This is mostly by the primary caregiver. If the primary caregiver is available, nurturing, and meeting of needs; then a bond between the infant & caregiver forms (often called “The Maternal Bond”). This bond is where self-confidence begins. Critical features of this bond include the infant’s “ASSURANCE” that needs are and will be met. The infant develops what might be called “CONFIDENCE” in the caregiver and the environment (in very early infancy, these are the same thing).
Over time, infant environment expands beyond primary caregiver and a differentiation of self from others starts. The infant learns (assuming the family dynamic is nurturing and stable) that the world is a “COHERENT” place. The infant learns and eventually is able to predict what will happen in this expanding environment (PREDICTABILITY).
IMPORTANT: Recall in earlier entries I discussed POV (POINT OF VIEW), the subjective and the objective. This dynamic is in play from the moment of birth.
Yes, infants have POV!
We are all born with POV capability.
Infant POV is primitive. Infants don’t distinguish between subject and object. They and everything else are “subject”. Later, (object) emerges. In the earliest period, the infant doesn’t separate itself from the primary caregiver; BOTH infant and primary caregiver “is” the subject. This is why infants can’t tolerate being separated from the mother.
I’ve always wondered why hospitals insist on taking the baby from the mother at the moment of birth - sometimes keeping the infant-mother separated for a stretch of 24 hours and sometimes days or weeks. This is a socially-generated practice that I believe is risky for psychological well-being (But, this is simply my POV even though I can produce mountains of data to support it.). Be that as it may, self-confidence emerges as a component of POV.
Self-Confidence (as distinguished from Confidence) emerges as the infant evolves and begins to recognize “self” or the subject-object difference duality. Infant learning, accelerates the dimensionality of POV and this is what opens the larger world to the infant.
From here, the story of self-confidence, at least as far as the typical person thinks about self-confidence, begins. Needs evolve into demands, wants, wishes, hopes, desires. All underscoring that needs are not always met and the meeting of needs is not always immediate. The meeting of one’s needs expands to others, the family and beyond: Needs evolve into seeking satisfaction, fulfillment, happiness, contentment (the extended understanding that gratification of need is delayed). The infant-now toddler, learns that he/she/they is an active agent in the world. Is an agent of change. The toddler must get it’s own needs met. Self-Confidence depends on how successful the toddler is at getting the toddler’s needs met in an expanding world with limited resources where meeting one’s needs is conditional.
An important ideology comes into play: “If you have needs, you can meet them yourself.” This ideology, which is primarily Euro-Western (it differs in other cultures and groups) grows and strengthens, becomes deeper, more sophisticated. When conditions are unpredictable and harsh this ideology can become maligned and fragmented. Perhaps even stunted, or it may never fully emerge, develop, or mature.
The toddler now moves into adolescence and adulthood, two very distinct phases of life where self-confidence must evolve further to meet one’s personal needs as conditionality increases. The evolution and trajectory of self-confidence is more complex and nuanced in adolescence and in adulthood than it was in infancy and childhood.
I don’t have space to discuss self-confidence maturation in these latter two phases. My focus now turns to “you” the reader, for your own views about what you believe your self-confidence capability is, How did you self-confidence emerge, grow, stay the same, or shrink post-toddlerhood and into adulthood.
What is Your Personal Self-Confidence Quotient?
Self-confidence as a socially-derived concept is DOMAIN SPECIFIC. All persons don’t have the same level of self-confidence capability in every aspect of life. Self-confidence differs across subject areas (art, sciences, mathematics, humanities) in a single person. There is self-confidence in sport or athletics. There is self-confidence in living (the good life, the happy life, being fulfilled).
DOMAIN-SPECIFIC SELF-CONFIDENCE might come into play, say, after a person experiences a life set-back. How quickly or completely does the person recover after a personal set-back (or a failure or rejection or misstep).
Perceived self-confidence is strongly affected by feedback.
Below is a Sport-Related self-confidence inventory. I start here because self-confidence is frequently connected to sport or athletics (where there is tons of feedback including objective measurements of performance outcomes). Self-confidence is less challenging to operationalize in sport than, say, self-confidence for living the good life.
Trait Robustness of Sports-Confidence Inventory
Instructions: The statements below describe how you may feel generally about your confidence, answer each statement by selecting the number that corresponds to how strongly you agree or disagree generally.
Note: The term “competition” refers to matches, tournaments or other competitive events. (bold stems are in reverse).
STATEMENTS:
A bad result in competition has a very negative effect on my self-confidence.
1=very strongly disagree
2=strongly disagree
3=disagree
4=neutral
5=agree
6=strongly agree
7=very strongly agree
My self-confidence goes up and down a lot.
1=very strongly disagree
2=strongly disagree
3=disagree
4=neutral
5=agree
6=strongly agree
7=very strongly agree
Negative feedback from others does not affect my level of self-confidence.
1=very strongly agree
2=strongly agree
3=agree
4=neutral
5=disagree
6=strongly disagree
7=very strongly disagree
If I perform poorly, my confidence is not badly affected.
1=very strongly disagree
2=strongly disagree
3=disagree
4=neutral
5=agree
6=strongly agree
7=very strongly agree
My self-confidence is stable; it does not vary very much at all.
1=very strongly disagree
2=strongly disagree
3=disagree
4=neutral
5=agree
6=strongly agree
7=very strongly agree
My self-confidence is not greatly affected by the outcome of competition.
1=very strongly disagree
2=strongly disagree
3=disagree
4=neutral
5=agree
6=strongly agree
7=very strongly agree
If I make a mistake it has quite a large detrimental effect on my self-confidence.
1=very strongly agree
2=strongly agree
3=agree
4=neutral
5=disagree
6=strongly disagree
7=very strongly disagree
My self-confidence remains stable regardless of fluctuations in fitness level.
1=very strongly disagree
2=strongly disagree
3=disagree
4=neutral
5=agree
6=strongly agree
7=very strongly agree
On this instrument, you can get a maximum score of 56, if you score below the average or 28 this is a mild concern, you likely find yourself lacking self-confidence in sport or athletic competitions. Females tend to score lower than Males on this test (but athletic females also generally score above the mean). People with high education score lower on this test (education causes people to second-guess themselves). Professional Athletes (high capability persons) score higher on this test (Michael Jordan would score high in self-confidence for basketball).
What impacts this test is:
1. Your personal POV (flexible or rigid, negative or positive, narrow or broad, etc.),
2. What the sport is and how well you feel you can perform at the sport,
3. Your MOOD.
If your mood is low (for whatever reason, athletic or not), you will score lower on this test even if your performance is excellent on whatever competition your are thinking about. There is a strong concordance (positive relationship) between this test score and a measure of clinical depression or depressed mood.
Self-Confidence is impacted by your psychological state
Just like most socially-derived measures of capability or well-being, self-esteem, optimism, pessimism, confidence generally defined, love of life, love of others, self-confidence is impacted by your general mood state.
Why?
An excellent question that I will answer in Part 2: Building Self Confidence in Adulthood.
I’m running out of space. It will require 2 parts to fully explore self-confidence. Once I have 100 views, I will write Part 2: How to Build Your Self Confidence as an Adult.