How confident are the British in themselves?

Milan DinicDirector - Content Strategy and Innovation
November 14, 2019, 10:00 AM GMT+0

Confidence plays a substantial role in shaping ones’ personality. A YouGov study on Personality has researched how confident Britons feel and what they think about how other people see them.

The Personality study has found that one in three Britons (34%) report that they do not feel confident about their personality, but different situations generate different levels of confidence. For example, one in eight (12%) Britons say they do not feel confident among their family, while one in four (23%) are not confident in their existing social group. Almost every second Brit (47%) said they did not feel confident at school – which is the highest figure in this category and therefore the place where Britons have felt most unconfident.

Also, more women (37%) than men (31%) don't feel confident in their personality.

Being loved/liked

The joy of loving and being loved are considered important for emotional stability. However, one in three Britons (31%) didn’t feel loved/liked at school, while every fifth doesn’t feel liked at social occasions (21%) and work (18%). One in eleven (9%) people in Britain don’t feel loved/liked at home.

Crossbreaks of results show that being higher on the social grade plays a role: 78% of those in the highest levels of professional occupation report being loved/liked at home, compared to 73% of those in the lowest occupational grade.

The first impression

We also investigated how Britons believe other people view them, whether they think they are liked by others or not, and how much that matters to them.

Every second Briton (53%) thinks they are liked by people when they first meet, while one in nine (11%) think that is not the case. Among those aged 16 to 39, one in seven (14%) think people don’t like them when they first meet them.

Half of Britons (48%) feel people like them more once they get to know them. For one in four (27%) what people think about them when they meet them for the first time doesn’t change after getting to know them better. The younger the people are, the more likely they are to say that people like them more once they get to know them better.

You can use our interactive charts to compare results and filter them with other questions and crossbreaks. To find out more about the YouGov Personality Study click here.

Image: Getty

Explore more data & articles