I wonder about what we mean when we say someone is “insecure”, namely
What’s the difference between someone who is insecure, and someone who is overconfident or arrogant in a deep and genuine way? How is an insecure person different from someone who does not, even deep down, realize that they are less awesome than they think they are?
If you Google “insecurity” it says “(of a person) not confident or assured; uncertain and anxious.” If that’s true, is being insecure even bad? It often makes sense to feel uncertain, since it’s often truly unclear how moral, knowledgeable, or capable we are. Being confident or assured might feel good, or persuade others that we’re good/capable, but if our confidence isn’t matched by competence, others might find us glib and annoying, and we might not realize real problems are there. Couldn’t “secure” then just mean “falsely complacent”?
Could it be that when we say someone is insecure, what we really mean is: this person seems to fear that their goodness/competence is not self-evident, and so they must go out of their way to convince us?
An insecure person is always worried about their status and worth. Not only do they always perceive themselves to be in the inferior position, it also bothers them. A lot. Jealousy/envy and resentment are their constant struggles.
Sometimes insecure people deal with their inferiority complex by acting overconfidently. For instance, I work with a woman who has horrible self-esteem. (I know it because she’s always badmouthing herself to whoever will listen). But in staff meetings, she’s the kind of person who will say whatever comes to mind, kind of in a “loud and wrong” way. Because I know this is her way to make herself seem more important than she feels, it doesn’t get on my nerves too much. Especially since there are a couple of people who really are arrogant on our team, and they are far more obnoxious. You can’t tell them anything. But an insecure person who’s overcompensating can be reasoned with, if you approach them the right way (like by appealing to their strengths).
I think feeling insecure simply means one feels he hasn’t earned or established his place in a specific setting. I am very insecure in some settings yet very confident in others. I would guess that most of us have experienced that.
They’re literally opposites. Someone who is insecure underestimates his skills or value and often feels they receive undue positive attention or even that some compliments aren’t sincere. Someone who is arrogant overestimates his skills or value, feels they don’t receive enough positive attention or that any criticism is overstated.
But they’re both really just sort of symptoms of the same thing, misjudging their personal worth, just in opposite directions.
No, insecurity is bad. Arrogance is bad. Being secure, in having a reasonably accurate assessment of one’s skills and weaknesses is the goal. That’s why being confident and following through is good. But if you seem uncertain about whether or not you can do it, or you show too much confidence then display incompetence, those are both bad.
That is, it’s not insecurity to make a reasonably accurate judgment that one is unable to do something. That judgment may turn out to be incorrect, but as long as the reasoning behind it is sound, perhaps it typically requires a skill one just doesn’t have, or one has displayed a lower level of competence at it. Similarly, a judgment that one is able to do something but ultimately fails isn’t necessarily overconfidence. Even the best at certain things may fail from time to time, as long as their expectations are more or less on par with their competence.
No, because we wouldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, call them insecure if we judged their competence to be on par with their confidence. It’s insecurity when we generally judge them to be good at something and they believe they’re not. But if they’re really not very good at it, then they’re just realistic. IOW, it’s the opposite of what you say, that their self-evident competence to others seems either superficial, irrelevant, or a simple over-valuation by others. On the contrary, it’s the arrogant ones who fear that their value isn’t self-evident. Others are judging them as less competent, or under-valuing their contributions.