Self-Confidence in Psychology and Islamic Ethics: Towards an Interpretive Framework and Its Relation to Trust in God

This paper focuses on self-confidence in psychology in both conceptual and empirical ways and investigates the status of self-confidence in Islamic ethics. Five relevant approaches to self-confidence are identified and then comparatively studied in psychology and Islamic ethics. In addition, an attempt is made to present an appropriate framework to build, boost, and improve self-confidence through psychology and to find its relation with Islamic ethics. This is conducted by using the analyticaldescriptive method along with library research. The principal elements of Islamic ethics include self-awareness, insight, self-respect, human dignity, positive thinking, optimism, endeavor, will, and being responsible, as well as spiritual and psychological independence. On the other hand, major elements of psychology include pattern, selfbelief, self-consciousness, positive self-thought, strong will, positive thinking, self-respect, invincibility, perseverance, objective-centeredness, patience, and acquisition of knowledge. These two approaches have some elements in common, such as self-awareness, knowledge, and experience acquisition, positive thinking, and self-respect. The results show that the God-oriented approach in an ethical framework of self-confidence, the essence of which lies in trust in God, can be distinguished from a psychological approach reflected in behaviorism and pragmatism.