Several factors have an effect on the improvement of self-confidence. The attitudes of parents are vital to how the children feel about themselves, especially in children’s early years. When parents give acceptance, children receive a solid basis for feeling good about themselves.

If one or both parents are extremely critical or demanding, or if they are overprotective and if they discourage steps toward self-reliance, children may come to think they are incompetent, insufficient, or inferior. Nevertheless, if parents encourage children's steps toward independence and accept/love their children when they commit mistakes, children will learn to accept themselves and will be on their way to building self-confidence.

Amazingly, lack of self-confidence is not automatically connected to lack of ability. But, it is usually the effect of concentrating too much on the impractical expectations or standards of others, especially parents and society. Influences of friends can be as powerful or more powerful than those of parents and society in determining feelings about one’s self. College students re-examine principles and values and reflect on their own identities and thus are particularly vulnerable to the friends’ influence.