Research Brief: Our Confidence Survey Results Are In!

In April, we surveyed 1,250 children ages 7 to 12, and using a series of research-validated measures, asked them about aspects of their confidence. For example, a self-worth question asked kids how often they were happy with the person they are, whereas a self-kindness question asked how often kids said nice things to themselves when they needed to feel better. The questions ranged across three pillars of confidence (self-concept, self-efficacy, and self-compassion), and gave us insight into the different ways that kids perceive their confidence. We then looked at whether there were groups of kids who answered questions similarly to one another.

You’re probably familiar with other examples of “profiling” or “typing” like MBTI, enneagrams, or Zodiac signs. Everyone falls into one group in which you have something in common with others. It’s one thing to be assigned to a group based on your birthday, but to create these groups mathematically, we use a procedure called latent profile analysis. We evaluate whether grouping people up based on similar response patterns may be a useful way to understand the data.

In this case, we identified six distinct profiles of confidence among children in this age range. You can think of these response patterns as constellations of confidence, and in the chart below you can see how each profile (each represented by a different color) scored relatively higher or lower across categories of confidence. 

For example, kids in the yellow and purple groups both scored similarly high in self-worth, yet the yellow group scored noticeably lower across resilience, self-kindness, common humanity, and balanced perspective.

Another group of kids (orange) scored higher in purpose than any other category, whereas the pink group of kids have a relatively high growth mindset as a defining feature. Still other groups scored moderately low in all confidence categories (green), or particularly low in the last three categories which are all about self-compassion (blue).

Once we identified the confidence attributes of each group, we looked to see whether there were differences in status attributes too. For example, the average age was lowest among the purple group and highest among the green group – which aligns with previous research that confidence decreases for kids from age 7 to 12. Beyond their age, we also have data on kids’ gender, race/ethnicity, family income, and even whether they identify as neurodiverse.

Kids are well distributed across the groups with yellow (29%) the largest, followed by pink (20%), orange (18%), green (14%), purple (13%), and blue (6%) with the fewest percentage of kids.

By identifying different profiles of confidence among kids this age, we can create more personalized program pathways based on shared strengths and needs within each group.

For example, 1-in-5 kids have a pink confidence profile, meaning that they think highly of themselves (positive self-concept), and have a particularly high growth mindset, but are relatively low in self-compassion. Designing an intervention that leans upon high self-concept and strong growth mindset to teach self-compassion skills would benefit a lot of kids!

This is why confidence profiles are so helpful – it’s one thing to know the average score for each confidence category, but that only gives us information about each factor on its own. Profiles represent actual groups of kids, and we’re able to see different patterns of confidence and their prevalence among young people.

We’re building confidence profiles into all of our programming – everywhere from constructing your own confidence profile to receiving personalized activities – and we’ll release additional insights as we continue this exciting line of research.