Task-relevant information, social reinforcement, and race as factors affecting performance.

Hypothesized that lower-class blacks, who have been found to have an external control orientation to their environment, would be more responsive to social reinforcements in a skill task than in a chance task situation. Conversely, it was expected that middle-class whites, who have been shown typically to maintain interval control orientations, would be more responsive to social reinforcements in a chance task than in a skill task situation. 48 male 5th and 6th graders (24 lower-class blacks and 24 middle-class whites) were assigned to social reinforcement and control conditions. The independent variables, social reinforcement, type of task, and ethnic group of Ss were used in a 3 * 2 * 2 analysis of variance. Results confirm the original hypotheses. (French summary) (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)