Oooh, an interesting question, points to you. Self-esteem, as I would define it, is how I view myself with regards to my good and bad attributes and qualitites, and in a sense is an overall view of your average self. So, if I think I care for others and am quite generous, I would say I have an aspect of beneficence to my character. Self-confidence is a more focussed aspect of self-esteem, it deals specifically with how I view my ability to do certain actions and then makes an average view of my abilities. So I may feel confident about performing CPR on a person who collapsed in the street, but unable to go over and talk to that gorgeous girl at the other end of the bar. Obviously, the second scenario is much more likely to happen than the first (or if not, where on earth do you live?!), and so has a larger impact on my overall self-confidence than the first. So, confidence deals with my perception of my ability to perform a specific action, self-confidence is sort of an average of all my confidences, weighted by how likely I am to use those abilities in reality, and self -esteem is an average view of all parts of my character, including my self-esteem. Self-conscious in this context would refer to being acutely aware of the situation I am in, psometimes to the point of thinking it is more important than it actually is. So at the moment I am aware that I am wearing a black jacket. But before I asked this question, that fact didn't weigh on my mind and so I didn't pay any attention to it. If I was walking around in a big pink bunny outfit, I would be embarassed and that fact would be perhaps the most foremost thought on my mind. If I had a massive spot on my chin, I might be acutely aware of it myself, but others may not pay it much attention. However, because I am very aware of it and wondering what others make of it, how do I look, etc etc, I am still self-conscious about it.