From bookstore tables overflowing with self-help  books that aim to " boost your self-confidence" to the injunctions to fight your complexes and give yourself the means to achieve your ambitions, self-confidence is a major concern in our time. But what exactly does self-confidence mean? Is it a big deal to lack it? Can we have too much ? Does self-confidence have a gender ? The editorial staff of the EVE web magazine takes stock.

Self-esteem and self-confidence : beware of confusion !

Self-esteem and self-confidence are often used for each other. However, the two notions are not interchangeable.  For the doctors of psychology Jean-Pierre Famose and Jean Bertsch, self-esteem corresponds to a " global evaluation of one's value as a person ". Self-esteem refers to the feeling of having value, while self-confidence refers to the fact of feeling capable of taking on future challenges.

" Have confidence... Believe in yourself...  says the snake Kaa

From the Latin confidere, meaning " to count on ", trust refers to the personal anchoring that one develops : stability, inner security and a virtual certainty that one will be able to face, in one way or another, the present situations and those that the future holds. We can then move forward without excessive fear, seize opportunities, take risks, allow ourselves the right to make mistakes... By feeling capable of succeeding, but also of bouncing back in the event of failure. In 1999, psychologist Jean Garneau defined self-confidence as " a realistic and timely prediction that one has the resources to deal with a particular type of situation ."  But where does this trust come from?

Trust and well-ordered narcissism 

Self-confidence is a narcissistic balance. In a way, a lucid relationship with oneself : neither a less than nothing, nor an interstellar genius; Just oneself, with one's strengths, flaws, one's personality in short, made up of multiple influences and experiences.

Once this is established, we can say that both underconfidence and overconfidence indicate an ego that cannot project itself. For example, if we are affected by writer's block, it is often a lack of humility, says the writer Daniel Picouly. Rather than begin with a mediocre piece of writing, we would like to write something prodigious at once.

Lack of self-confidence, like overconfidence, can lead to a myriad of complexes that slow down the impulse of audacity, starting with the imposture complex. Because I place myself lower (underconfidence) or higher (overconfidence) than my real value, I back down from the obstacle, I procrastinate, I brace myself, I give up... As such, we can only preach to Vincent Van Gogh: " If you hear a voice inside telling you : ' You can't paint ', by all means, paint ;  and that voice will be extinguished."

A balance that takes root from childhood ?

Psychologist Fitzhugh Dodson's bestseller, Everything Is Played Before the Age of 6, has made an impression. The idea that self-confidence is forged in childhood is strongly imprinted and contains its share of truth : the instances of primary socialization (family, school, etc.) contribute greatly to the construction of our inner security. The feeling of being loved, supported, encouraged... Fuels self-confidence. Conversely, devaluation, like overvaluation, can generate a lack of self-confidence.

This vision of primo-acquired self-confidence is nevertheless energetically denounced for its deterministic overtones by current currents of psychology. From the promoters of resilience to the followers of positive psychology and the proponents of the third wave of behavioural and cognitive therapies (first and foremost the ACT movement), we now know that self-confidence can be (re)built and nourished throughout life.

Joëlle Proust, philosopher and director of research emeritus at the CNRS, understands self-confidence as a meta-cognition, a " feeling that is generated by the cognitive activity that we have ourselves". It would therefore be a " positive feedback on the activity that makes the agent predict that he will succeed in his activity even later, or that he will succeed in it now ". By fuelling the desire to learn, trust plays an indisputable role in the learning process. The problem, Joëlle Proust explains, is that " this self-confidence is not only generated by the simple capacity of the person but also by the social representations that he has of himself or that he has of himself ".

Lack of self-confidence or self-censorship ?

In a Financi'elles study carried out in June 2018, 61% of female employees in the Banking, Finance and Insurance sector said they lacked self-confidence and 67% self-censored their ambition. This discrepancy clearly shows that while the lack of self-confidence contributes to the phenomenon of self-censorship, it is not the only one responsible for it. Patrick Scharnitzky, a speaker at EVE, explains it well in an interview with the webmagazine : " In one case, we question the person's temperament and maturity, in the other, we ask the question of behavior in context ."

" You will lack self-confidence, my daughter " ?

Another study, this one carried out in 2016 by the CSA Institute for the Ministry of Families, Children and Women's Rights, points to a convergent cross-perception of women and men on the probabilities of success of girls and boys in certain fields of study : 45% of women and 44% of men say that boys have a better chance of success than girls in technological fields. The same is true in sport (46% of women and 42% of men think that boys do better) or in science (31% of women and 25% of men).

These statistics reflect the real risk of declaring at all costs that women lack self-confidence. This risk is that of the self-fulfilling prophecy. This notion, coined by Robert King Merton, is in line with Joëlle Proust's idea of a feeling of trust that depends both on the individual and on the social representations assigned to him. Thus, by expecting less from girls than from boys, we encourage them less and make them progress less. In reality, it's not exactly that we expect less from them, it's that what we expect from them builds what we call the good student complex: you have to be wise, docile, respect the instructions, be patient (and here, Cinderella's complex shows its nose !), be discreet... However, these are not the qualities expected in the professional world – at least in the traditional one – which recognizes and rewards more, who makes known as much as knows how to do ; values the spirit of initiative and grants nothing to those who ask for nothing !

No self-confidence without overall confidence

Self-confidence does not work in isolation. Marie Donzel, associate director of AlterNego, explains it through her allegory of the flying trapeze. To launch herself into the void, a trapeze artist needs three levels of confidence :

• Self-confidence : To let go of the trapeze to which she is attached (comfort zone), the trapeze artist must of course have faith in her own skills : her agility, her precision, her flexibility, her concentration... Indeed, in order to deploy one's audacity, one must feel capable.

• Trust in others : But if she is 200% sure of her own abilities, the trapeze artist takes off because she is counting on her partner to catch her in flight. The spectacular figure is the result of this team partnership, based on mutual trust and synchronization. You only get out of your comfort zone if you trust others and feel that they trust you.

• Confidence in the structure : The two acrobats only engage in such a perilous exercise because they trust the apparatus's sufficiently robust and flexible framework (the frame) to withstand the energy of the powerful gesture. They also know that in the event of a mistake (errare humanum est), the harness and safety net are there to avoid disaster ! Applied to the world of work, this argues in favour of an organisation that is both secure and flexible, which guarantees a set of rights and quality working conditions, so that it can deploy all its audacity, creativity, spirit of innovation...