They're putting the cart before the horse.  The correlation between success and confidence is because, for example, women who look amazing are more confident as a result.  Confidence doesn't magically make women more attractive or anyone successful if it's delusional. It's like with the self-esteem movement.  They saw a correlation between self-esteem and success at school and assumed magically boosting self-esteem--e.g., giving tons of undeserved praise--would mean better grades and behavior.  In reality, students who accomplished more in school and other areas of life had more self-esteem as a result. It turns out that giving everyone a gold star doesn't make students perform better (and it certainly didn't make me feel better--the "everyone wins, there's no score" ethic at my Little League games violated my sense of justice).