Self-esteem: self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence and self-efficacy

There are many different parts of the self, all influencing our wellbeing. Here comes an attempt to explain the subtle differences behind important self-concepts, where even the researchers still do not agree: Self-confidence, our trust in our ability to perform certain activities, tasks etc. leading to abilities or achievements and self-esteem, a multidimensional concept including both our emotional and cognitive appraisal, i.e. what we think, feel and believe about ourselves and our self-worth, the summary value we put on ourselves cognitively and emotionally, also when failing or when things do not go as planned, even if it is temporarily hurtful. Self-esteem is a global sense of self-worth. Persons with high self-esteem and self-worth are forgiving of own and others’ mistakes. People with high self-confidence but low self-esteem and low self-worth tend to reduce themselves to single events and therefore chases successes in most areas and are particularly vulnerable to a single setback. Self-confidence is not sufficient or necessary for having high self-esteem or self-worth. Instead, there is a risk of a never-ending chase after validation from the surroundings as an attempt to fill the hole where self-esteem and self-worth should have been.
The concept of self-efficacy developed by Bandura is related to one’s beliefs about one’s capability to perform specific tasks or actions, that is, towards a specific challenge such as moving the grass, independent of the value we attach to the given act. If it is not an important task for us to be good at we do not let it influence our self-worth, hence our self-worth remains mainly unchanged regardless of whether we judge our ability/self-efficacy as high or low at this task. All in all, these dimensions of the self are interrelated and some of them are easier to influence than others. But this also give us the hope that it is possible to develop and change. See coming posts on inspiration on how to do this. #selfesteem #selfefficacy #selfworth #selfconfidence #psychologicalwellbeing #selfidentity