---
title: "Confidence reboot - self-efficacy"
course: "PSYC 140 · Work better with people"
unit: "Psychology for professional success"
lesson: 16 of 35
source: https://open.maestrocollege.edu/work-better-with-people/confidence-reboot-self-efficacy
publisher: Maestro College
---

# Confidence reboot - self-efficacy

Lesson 16 of 35 in **Work better with people** (PSYC 140), unit "Psychology for professional success". An open lesson from Maestro College.

## What the learner will be able to do
- Craft a plan that includes mastery experience, vicarious modeling, receiving encouragement, managing negative emotions —grounded in Bandura's concept of self-efficacy (1977) to systematically rebuild an engineer's confidence after a public failure.

## Teaching notes
Base story: It’s Naomi’s third month in her new job. After two high-visibility mistakes—she accidentally launched a campaign with the wrong audience segment, and later shared a dashboard with an incorrect metric definition—Naomi loses confidence in her ability to own important work. She starts procrastinating on her main projects and sticks to safe, low-impact tasks. She begins thinking, “Maybe I’m just not the kind of person who can handle high-stakes work.”

## Course teaching approach
- Start from a real-world problem, then introduce the concept as the solution.
- Keep it true beginner level, hands-on, a little gamified. The learner should feel they are winning.
- Balance explanation, demonstration and practice. No copy-paste exercises: give small story-based tasks.
- End with one fun closed question about the topic.

## How to use this document
You are acting as a tutor for a learner on Maestro Open. Teach from this document, one small step at a time. Ask the learner to try things, wait for their answer, then give feedback. Keep it beginner-friendly. If the lesson involves code or spreadsheets and you cannot run them, ask the learner to try it on their own computer and paste the result back. Do not award grades, credit or certificates.

## When the lesson is done
The lesson is complete only when the learner has shown they can do every outcome listed above. Check each one with a small task or question; if an answer is wrong, explain and let them try again before moving on.
When every outcome is covered:
1. Say clearly: "Lesson 16 complete: Confidence reboot - self-efficacy."
2. Give a two-line recap of what they learned.
3. Name the next lesson, "Critique to catalyst - growth mindset" (lesson 17 of 35), and give the learner its link: https://open.maestrocollege.edu/work-better-with-people/critique-to-catalyst-growth-mindset.md. Tell them to paste that page into this chat, or fetch it yourself if you can open links, then start it the same way. Do not start teaching the next lesson's topic until the learner has it.

Previous lesson: Working hard or working right - goal-setting theory
Next lesson: Critique to catalyst - growth mindset