Confidence: belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities. Conceit: an excessively favorable opinion of one’s own ability, importance, wit, etc.
Self esteem: a realistic respect for or favorable impression of oneself.
I looked up these words in the dictionary because after taking the self-esteem test in the class, I got a relatively high score of 75 and I wondered if I’m more conceited than confident. To make sure if I’m conceited or confident, I had to find the difference between the two.
By looking up the definitions, I found out that confidence is a belief of one's own capabilities, powers, and etc. and conceit is about believing and showing others about his or her ability that they are better than others. These two words could have the opposite or the cause and effect connotation. Because sometimes confidence can bring conceit. For example, when one succeeds in his/her work and is acknowledges by others because of their self-confidence, they are likely to become conceited.
A Former General Electric CEO, Jack Welch said, Quote His view on self-confident people is that they are not afraid take others’ views into consideration and change the old views.
These two definitions are very different. Confidence is a belief of oneself. It is not about showing or comparing oneself to others. But conceit is an expression of one’s capabilities. These two words may sound similar but there is a big difference to it, which is a belief in oneself. It means that people who are conceited is likely to put a low value on others because they have a low self-esteem. They may be unaware of the fact that they have a low value too. They have self-doubt in themselves and that is why they have to push others down to prove they have higher values than others. But if they already consider themselves as a valuable person, then they don’t have to prove it to others. People of self-confidence and self-respect are acknowledged as they are because they respect others the same way.
It is hard to draw a line between the two and I think the only way to maintain a balance solely depends on one’s attempt to control self-esteem. After researching this subject, I think I have a relatively high self-esteem than others but not so conceited.
Love the cartoon!
ReplyDeleteHow about a link for Jack Welsh's quote?
i agree with you that it's so hard to separate the three words, self esteem, confidence and conceit. It was funny to see how high of self-esteem our group members had! haha either way, I think it's better to be confident and have self-esteem than be really inconfident and effete in one's belief.
ReplyDeleteHow about people with "근자감 (근거 없는 자신감)"? Does everyone know this word? It means having confidence that are groundless. What can we say about these kind of people? Can we considered them as being confident too?
ReplyDeleteI was a little confused because I didn't know the precise meanings of these words, and thanks to your explanation I perfectly get it now :)
ReplyDeleteThe words 'confidence','conceit' and 'self-esteem' all has to do believing in oneself but as you posted, confident people and conceited people behave very differently. conceited people are too absorbed in themselves and are criticized by others while confident people are praised and highly recognized.
How about the problem with low self-esteem? Considering people with too low self-esteem, building one's self-esteem seems an important matter along with avoiding becoming 'conceited'. For both problems, maintaining moderate, healthy belief in oneself-confidence-is the key.
I also agree that there is a very fine line between confidence and conceit and often they appear to go hand in hand. But I think even though there are different definitions for these two ideas, in reality the difference depends on our views on other people. For example when we see two different people acting in similar ways, whether or not we view them as being confident or conceited depends on our impressions of them. The one who seems competent and capable in our eyes will probably seem confident. The other who we view as less competent and capable, but acts in the same way as the first person, will probably seem more conceited and in our eyes than confident. So I think the people who define the difference between the two ideas or draws the line between the two are actually us and not the dictionary.
ReplyDeleteI got 47 on the self-esteem test. I have fairly low self esteem, so I sometimes think being a little conceited is better than low self esteem.
ReplyDelete