Publish at March 25 2026 Updated March 25 2026
The question of "self-confidence", understood as collective confidence in a group's ability to act, learn and transform a situation, has taken on growing importance in contemporary research.
In a world characterized by ecological, technological and social uncertainty, the problems facing societies far exceed the capacities of any single individual. Trust can no longer be thought of solely as a personal feeling; it is becoming a relational and collective property, linked to a group's ability to recognize its resources, cooperate and learn together.
Recent work in educational science, organizational sociology and social psychology sheds light on this three-stage dynamic:
An initial body of research shows that collective trust is built first and foremost in the shared experience of action. Groups develop self-confidence through repeated experience of their ability to solve problems together.
This dynamic is close to what social psychology calls collective efficacy, i.e. a group's shared belief in its ability to organize and carry out the actions required to achieve a common goal. Recent syntheses show that collectives that have undergone successful cooperative experiences develop a stronger perception of their power to act, which reinforces their ability to commit to new challenges (Frazier, Fainshmidt, Klinger, Pezeshkan & Vracheva, 2021).
Self-confidence is therefore not born of a mobilizing discourse, but of a lived experience of cooperation. It is built in situations where individual contributions are articulated and produce a result that exceeds everyone's capabilities.
This dynamic is particularly visible in collective learning contexts, where interactions enable individual knowledge to be transformed into shared resources. In such situations, collective confidence is nurtured by a sense of interdependence: each individual discovers that he or she can rely on others to complement his or her own capacity for action. However, self-confidence does not depend solely on past experience.
A second body of research underlines the importance of the relational and organizational conditions that enable collectives to develop this confidence.
Recent work on psychological safety shows that groups learn and cooperate better when they have a relational climate that allows the expression of ideas, doubts and mistakes (Edmondson & Lei, 2024).
In such contexts, group members can take interpersonal risks without fear of being discredited, which encourages collective exploration of problems. Self-confidence then appears as an emergent property of a relational environment where speech flows and contributions are recognized.
Research on innovative teams confirms that environments that foster mutual recognition, cooperation and cognitive diversity reinforce the ability of groups to develop collective confidence in their shared intelligence.
Conversely, organizations that are highly hierarchical or focused on individual performance can undermine this collective trust by encouraging competition rather than cooperation. In such contexts, individuals may be competent, but the group struggles to see itself as capable of acting together.
Finally, a third stream of research highlights the transformative effects of collective trust on groups' ability to act.
When collectives develop self-confidence, they become capable of exploring uncertain situations and producing forms of distributed intelligence. Contemporary research on collaboration shows that teams with strong collective trust develop more learning behaviors, such as information sharing, experimentation or joint reflection on mistakes (Akkerman & Bakker, 2022).
This dynamic changes the way groups approach complex problems. Instead of seeking individual solutions, they develop co-construction processes that integrate multiple perspectives. Trust in us then acts as an amplifier of collective intelligence: it facilitates the circulation of ideas, the combination of knowledge and the group's ability to adapt to changing environments.
From this perspective, collective trust is not just a psychological disposition; it is a social resource that supports organizational learning and innovation. It enables groups to enter into transformative dynamics where uncertainty becomes a space for exploration rather than a threat.
Ultimately, self-confidence cannot be reduced to a simple sum of individual confidence. It denotes an emergent relational quality, which emerges when individuals discover through experience that they can think, decide and act together. In environments marked by uncertainty, this collective trust becomes a strategic resource: it enables groups to venture into situations where no isolated expertise is sufficient. It authorizes exploration, supports initiative-taking and makes shared learning possible.
This perspective leads to a shift in the way organizations and institutions approach the question of trust. Rather than seeking to bolster individual confidence through injunctions to self-confidence or motivation, the challenge is to design environments where people can concretely experience their shared power to act.
Dialogue mechanisms, collective reflexive practices and forms of cooperation that recognize the plurality of contributions play a decisive role here. Self-confidence is built not so much in speeches as in situations where everyone can experience that the intelligence of the group exceeds the capacities of its individual members.
From this perspective, self-confidence opens up a broader question for contemporary societies. As challenges become systemic: ecological transformations, technological mutations, social recompositions - the ability of collectives to perceive themselves as capable of learning and acting together becomes a condition for transformation.
Collective trust is not just a favorable relational climate; it could well become one of the invisible infrastructures of learning societies.
References
Akkerman, S. F., & Bakker, A. (2022). Boundary crossing and learning in professional contexts. Review of Educational Research, 92(4), 548-584.
Edmondson, A., & Lei, Z. (2024). Psychological safety: The history, renaissance, and future of an interpersonal construct. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 11, 23-48.
Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2021). Psychological safety: A meta-analytic review and extension. Personnel Psychology, 74(1), 113-165.
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