SELF-CONFIDENCE IN YOUNG ADULTS: THE INFLUENCE OF GENDER AND FAMILY ECONOMIC BACKGROUND

Abstract

Confidence is the key in developing and shaping one’s personality. Trusting one’s abilities, improving every second, and constantly striving for success, makes a person confident to accomplish his goals and fulfill his desires. A person confident enough to make his own decisions and trust his own judgments can achieve his dreams in life. This paper examines the effect of two variables, namely gender and family economic background on the self-confidence of young adults, to find out whether these variables influence an individual’s self-confidence in any way. To investigate this, primary data was collected by administrating the self-confidence inventory developed and standardized by Dr. Rekha Gupta on the sample of 140 college students drawn from randomly selected colleges of Haldwani city. A non-probability sampling technique was used to collect the data from the selected sample. Equal distribution of males and females was ensured for better representation of the results. For statistical analysis and data interpretation, Mean, S.D. and t-test were applied. Results revealed that there is a significant difference in the self-confidence levels among boys and girls where boys showed higher self-confidence than girls, concluding that gender does influence a person’s self-confidence. The results of the paper also showed a significant difference in self-confidence among young adults belonging to low and high family economic backgrounds, where young adults belonging to high family economic background showed higher self-confidence than young adults belonging to low family economic background, concluding that economic background does influence a person’s self-confidence.