A Few glances at some Authors
DEFINITIONS from their books
"The Role of Confidence in life long Learning"
In 2003 Norman and Hyland suggest there are three elements to confidence:
Cognitive- A person's knowledge of their abilities
Performance- Their ability to do something.
Emotional- Feeling comfortable about the former two aspects.
Developing confidence needs to accommodate each aspect.
"Six Pillars of Self-esteem"
In 1969 Branden believed Self-esteem to be:'Self-efficiency' and 'Self-Respect'
Confidence in our ability to think, confidence in our ability to cope with the basic challenges of life.
Confidence in our right to be successful and happy, the feeling of being worthy, deserving, entitled to assert our needs and wants, achieve our values.
"The disposition to experience oneself as being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and being worthy of happiness."
"Defining Self-Esteem"
In 2001 Alexander, building on the work of Branden, separated out self-esteem into elements and dimensions:
● unconditional self-acceptance – knowing and accepting who you are, your positive attributes as well as your weaknesses;
● sense of capability or efficacy – knowing what you are capable of as well as what you find difficult;
● sense of purpose – having a goal or direction in life, and taking action to achieve that goal;
● appropriate assertiveness – feeling able to ask and take action to get what you want in life;
● experience of flow and fulfillment – a sense of satisfaction and pleasure in what you are doing, being absorbed in a task;
● sense of responsibility and accountability – knowing how far you are responsible for your situation and actions;
● sense of safety and security – a feeling of trust in yourself and others, feeling comfortable and at ease in your surroundings;
● sense of belonging – feeling part of something, feeling included;
● sense of integrity – living your life according to your values, acting and behaving as you think right.
He believed an imbalance of any of these could result in difficulties in maintaining positive self-esteem. He stated separating out self-esteem into these elements allows us to understand low self-esteem.
The National Association For Self-esteem defines self-esteem as: "The experience of being capable of meeting life's challenges and being worthy of happiness."
There is so much discrepancy and misconceptions of the actual definition of self-esteem due to the depth of it. There is agreement that self-esteem includes cognitive, behavioral, and affect components.