Self-confidence

The socio-psychological concept of self-confidence relates to self-assurance in one's personal judgment, ability, power, etc.^[1]

Factors

Self-belief has been directly connected to an individual's social network, the activities they participate in, and what they hear about themselves from others. Positive self-esteem has been linked to factors such as psychological health, mattering to others, and both body image and physical health. Low self-esteem in adolescents has been shown to be an important predictor of unhealthy behaviours and psychological problems such as suicidal ideation later in life.^[2]

During adolescence, self-esteem is affected by age, race, ethnicity, puberty, health, body height, body weight, body image, involvement in physical activities, gender presentation, gender identity, and awakening or discovery of sexuality. Self-confidence can vary and be observed in a variety of dimensions. Components of one's social and academic life affect self-esteem. An individual's self-confidence can vary in different environments, such as at home or in school.^[3]

The Wheel of Wellness

The Wheel of Wellness was the first theoretical model of Wellness based in counseling theory. It is a model based on Adler's individual psychology and cross-disciplinary research on characteristics of healthy people who live longer and with a higher quality of life. The Wheel of Wellness includes five life tasks that relate to each other: spirituality, self-direction, work and leisure, friendship, and love. There are 15 subtasks of self-direction areas: sense of worth, sense of control, realistic beliefs, emotional awareness and coping, problem solving and creativity, sense of humor, nutrition, exercise, self-care, stress management, gender identity, and cultural identity. There are also five second-order factors, the Creative Self, Coping Self, Social Self, Essential Self, and Physical Self, which allow exploration of the meaning of wellness within the total self. In order to achieve a high self-esteem, it is essential to focus on identifying strengths, positive assets, and resources related to each component of the Wellness model and using these strengths to cope with life challenges.^[3]

Implicit vs. explicit

Implicit can be defined as something that is implied or understood though not directly expressed. Explicit is defined as something that is fully and clearly expressed; leaving nothing implied.^[4] Implicitly measured self-esteem has been found to be weakly correlated with explicitly measured self-esteem. This leads some critics to assume that explicit and implicit self-confidence are two completely different types of self-esteem. Therefore, this has drawn the conclusion that one will either have a distinct, unconscious self-esteem OR they will consciously misrepresent how they feel about themselves. Recent studies have shown that implicit self-esteem doesn't particularly tap into your unconscious, rather that people consciously overreport their levels of self-esteem. Another possibility is that implicit measurement may be assessing a different aspect of conscious self-esteem altogether.^[5] Inaccurate self-evaluation is commonly observed in healthy populations. In the extreme, large differences between oneʼs self-perception and oneʼs actual behavior is a hallmark of a number of disorders that have important implications for understanding treatment seeking and compliance.^[6]

See also

• Confidence, often equivalent to self-confidence
• Hubris or vanity, excessive self-confidence
• Self-esteem, conceit, or favourable opinion of oneself, or self-acceptance
• Self-efficacy, confidence about specific skills

References

1. The [oxford Dictionary]. Compare The Dictionary of Psychology by yogesh chandra . Psychology Press, 1999. ISBN 1-58391-028-X. Online via Google Book Search.
2. McGee, Rob; Williams, Sheila (1 October 2000). "Does low self-esteem predict health compromising behaviours among adolescents". Journal of Adolescence 23: 569–582. doi:10.1006/jado.2000.0344.
3. Myers, Jane; Willise, John; Villalba, Jose (1 January 2011). "Promoting Self-Esteem in Adolescents: The Influence of Wellness Factors". Journal of Counseling and Development 89: 28–30. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6678.2011.tb00058.x.
4. "The Free Dictionary". Farlex. Farlex.
5. Timko, Alix; England, Erica. Herbert, James. Foreman, Evan. (Fall 2010). "The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure as a measure of Self-Esteem". The Psychological Record 60 (4): 679. Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)
6. Beer, J.; Lombardo M; Bhanji J. (September 2010). "Roles of Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Orbitofrontal Cortex in Self-evaluation". Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 22 (9): 2108–2119. doi:10.1162/jocn.2009.21359.

External links

• "Lack of self-confidence", a Buddhist view.