Talking about confidence

[chrisvenus]

I read something that suggested that finding out more about confidence from the point of view of others was helpful to building your own self-confidence. So here we go. I am at times very un-confident in myself so I am going to ask a few questions to get people going on the subject. If you want to add in more comments or questions then feel free. I have a vague feeling I did something similar before but now I'm copying from a book so it will be much better. Anonymous posting welcome if you don't want to put your name to your answers. :)

1) What do you think confidence is?

2) Where does confidence come from?

3) Can you think of someone who is completely confident?

4) How can you tell if someone is confident or not?

5) How do you feel when you talk to someone who is not at all confident?

6) Does a confident person always feel confident?

and my own one for number 7:

7) What is the difference between being confident and acting confident?


I will try to put up my own answers later but I don't have time right now.

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I think this is an oversimplified view.

Certainly it is. But to avoid simplification of such broad questions means ending up hopelessly mired in the whole issue of words and their meanings and the subjectivity of assessing oneself and one's perceptions relative to others and theirs. And so on.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Of course, but I think it's important to do that. Otherwise you only get trite answers.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I've found it pretty interesting reading everyone's answers. I'd suggest it's possible to build a good overall picture from a collection of individually imperfect replies.

[kissifa.livejournal.com]

The most interesting thing I've been noting is the number of people who claim confidence is a state of mind, and those who claim it is a pretense to hide fear. Good indicators, there. :)

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

The issue here is partly that I am unusually unhappy with discussing anything in the abstract. I find it largely pointless. I tend to want to deal with specifics, because I don't accept that there is much meaning in theory, given that everything is a specific thing.

This is one of those things that those personality tests test. You know, the ones that tell you what your learning personality is, or whether you're thinking/feeling, judging/perceiving, etc. Some people like to think in terms of abstract or general principles, other people like to deal with specific situations. I am very firmly the latter. Discussions about general principles leave me incredibly frustrated with their imprecision. Realising that about myself (and realising that it's just a style of thought which other people don't necessarily share) helped me no end, just as realising that I learn by doing helped me no end.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

You know, the ones that tell you what your learning personality is

Ah, yes, and which Power Ranger I am. ;-)

Some people like to think in terms of abstract or general principles, other people like to deal with specific situations.

I have real trouble with this as a dichotomy. I have a mathematician's mindset I suppose. I like to deal with everything at the most abstract possible level that's able to describe it. I suppose that has to count as pro-abstract really, but I can't stand vagueness. Something should only be abstracted if doing so doesn't lose any of the point being made.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Hm, we need some new terminology, I guess. I hate abstract, but love maths.
But it's not abstract in the sense that moral philosophy is abstract: it's incredibly precise. Perhaps what we're talking about is generalisation: the reason moral philosophy drives me up the wall is that it can only deal with generalities, and in my opinion generalities have nothing to do with actual moral decision-making. Maths doesn't deal with generalities because mathematical things follow laws in a way that psychomological and ethical things don't. So although it's abstract, there are no exceptions falling through the cracks.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Yep, exactly. So in fact I have very similar preferences to yours and... again run into linguistic trouble even trying to articulate this !

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I think there are two things described as "generalisation":

1) Noting properties shared by disparate objects, articulating the properties, interacting with or reasoning about the objects in terms of those properties.

2) Noting groups of objects which are likely to have certain properties, or which express a particular property in differing degrees. Interacting with or reasoning about the objects in terms of those properties.

The former is analytical, has formal correctness as a rule of inference, and (empirically) works unless you make a mistake in your analysis. The latter leads to "categorical" statements with exceptions, relies on intuition for whether the exceptions "matter", and is logically unsound in that it can lead you to reason about an object in terms of a property which it does not actually have.

They're both pretty useful in daily life, depending how you prefer to think about different things. Language seems to be mostly built of type 2 generalisations. Mathematics attempts to be built exclusively of type 1 generalisations. Reasoning with type 2 generalisations is prone to arguments about the meaning of "socialism", or "fruitcake", or "dangerous dog", or whatever. Reasoning with type 1 generalisation is prone to not having the full information needed to get anywhere with certainty.