(upbeat music)
[DR. BRETT JONES] Hey.
Today I'm gonna answer the question,
"What's the difference between self-efficacy,
self-concept, and self-esteem?"
I'm here at the Citi Open tennis tournament,
because I want you to think about how your self-efficacy,
for serving in tennis,
can be different from your tennis self-concept,
which can be different from your athletic self-concept,
your academic self-concept,
and your overall self-esteem.
Let's go back to Virginia Tech to find out how these
self-beliefs contribute to your sense of self.
This video is part of the Ed Psych Insight series,
in which I explain educational psychology concepts.
(buzzer buzzing)
[INTERVIEWER] How good are you at tennis?
[DR. BRETT JONES] At tennis, on a zero to ten scale,
I would say about a seven.
I'm pretty good, but not great.
[INTERVIEWER] How good are you at baseball?
[DR. BRETT JONES] Baseball is not my best sport.
I'm not too bad.
I would say, probably a three.
(bell chiming)
[INTERVIEWER] How good are you at football?
[DR. BRETT JONES] Well I'm a pretty good wide receiver.
I mean, compared to guys on the Virginia Tech Football team,
I'm probably a two or three but, compared to guys my age,
I'm probably like a eight, or nine.
I'm fast, and I catch the ball.
(upbeat instrumental music)
How you rate your ability in different domains,
is called your self-concept.
Self-concept is about your ability,
which is also referred to as your competence,
or your level of knowledge and skills in a domain.
In the videos you just saw,
I rated my self-concept as a seven in tennis,
a three in baseball, and a two or eight in football,
depending on who I was comparing myself to.
So the first key point,
is that our self-concepts are multi-dimensional,
because we can have different ratings,
for different self-concepts.
A second key point,
is that our self-concept in a particular domain,
such as tennis or football,
can vary depending on who we're comparing ourselves to.
My rating is much lower when I compare myself
to a Division One football player,
than when I compare myself to an average guy my age.
A third key point,
is that our self-concepts are hierarchical,
because they are comprised of broader,
and narrower self-concepts.
Here, you can see that my tennis, baseball,
and football self-concepts,
are part of my athletic self-concept,
which is part of my physical self-concept.
I also have other physical self-concepts,
such as an attractiveness self-concept, and others.
In fact, if we were to expand this,
we would see that we have many self-concepts,
such as an academic self-concept,
that's comprised of self-concepts in science,
math, writing,and other domains.
So to summarize,
self-concept is your perception of your competence,
in a particular domain, such as academics, athletics, or tennis.
Now, let's define self-efficacy.
[INTERVIEWER] How confident are you that you can make a serve?
[DR. BRETT JONES] On a ten-point scale,
I would say seven.
The question, "How confident are you,
that you can do a specific activity?"
is asking about self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy is your confidence that you can complete
a specific activity within a domain.
In the video,
I rated my confidence that I could hit a serve,
as a seven on a ten-point scale.
But I also have self-efficacies,
related to solving double-digit addition problems,
and making friends in biology class.
So while self-efficacy focuses on a specific activity,
self-concepts, are your broader perceptions of your abilities,
within the domain,
and are likely informed by your self-efficacies.
For example, your math self-concept,
would likely be higher if your self-efficacy
for solving double-digit addition problems was high,
and vice versa.
But if you were in high school, your math self-concept
would also be informed by your self-efficacy,
in solving algebra, and geometry problems.
So as you can see,
we have a lot of perceptions about ourselves.
One reason that self-efficacy is important,
is that it tends to correlate with performance.
For example, someone with a higher self-efficacy,
for hitting a successful serve,
would be more likely to perform higher when serving.
Let's test this out.
I rated my self-efficacy as a seven,
so I will estimate,
that I should make seven out of ten serves.
It probably doesn't work exactly like that,
but it makes sense that a fairly high self-efficacy rating,
should lead to a fairly-high percentage of successful serves.
Okay, so now we're gonna test this out by hitting in,
ten balls, into the service court on the other side,
and we'll find out how many I can actually make
out of ten balls on one take, no re-dos.
(Dr. Brett chuckling)
(buzzer buzzing)
(bell chiming)
(buzzer buzzing)
(bell chiming)
(buzzer buzzing)
(bell chiming)
(triumphant instrumental music)
Okay, so my performance was exactly as I predicted.
Although by adolescence, and into adulthood,
people become pretty good at estimating their ability
to complete activities.
Young children are not very good at it,
and they tend to overestimate their abilities.
Now that you know about self-efficacy, and self-concept,
let's talk about self-esteem.
Self-esteem is an emotional reaction,
to your overall evaluation of yourself as a person of worth.
Basically, it's how you feel about yourself overall.
These feelings are affected by how good you are,
at what you value.
So, for example, if you value academics more than physical,
and social abilities,
and you have a low academic self-concept,
then you'll have a lower self-esteem,
even if you have high physical and social self-concepts.
Similarly, you may feel great about yourself,
if you have a high academic self-concept,
even if you have low physical and social self-concepts,
if you don't value those.
As you can see,
our self-esteem depends on being good at the things we value.
So what's the difference between self-efficacy,
self-concept, and self-esteem?
Well, to summarize,
self-efficacy is your confidence in your ability to complete
a specific activity, such as a math problem.
Your self-concepts are your perceptions,
about how good you are in various domains,
such as math, tennis or romantic relationships.
And self-esteem,
includes your feelings about your overall evaluation
of yourself, as a person of worth.
And your self-esteem is affected by what you value.
As a final point,
self-efficacy can be changed relatively quickly
if the activity doesn't take too long to learn.
For example, someone's self-efficacy
for solving double-digit addition problems,
could be increased a lot in a few hours,
if they knew how to add,
but didn't know how to add double digits
in the problem shown here.
Of course, it would take longer,
maybe even several months, or a year
to increase someone's math self-concept
if they didn't believe that they were good at math,
to begin with.
And because self-esteem is dependent on self-concept,
it would likely take more time to change someone's self-esteem
as well.
The main differences identified in this video,
are summarized in this table,
and you can pause the video to review them.
If you found this video helpful, make sure to leave a like,
and subscribe to my channel for more videos.
More information about this topic is available
at my website,
and in the 'Essentials of Educational Psychology' book,
which are linked in the description below.
Thanks for watching!
(upbeat instrumental music)
[INTERVIEWER] How good are you at quarterback?
[DR. BRETT JONES] Well, compared to the Virginia Tech
quarterback, I'm probably like a nine or ten.
[COMMENTATOR] Here we go!
Sorry drumline!