The present study evaluates the immediate effects of an experimentally manipulated social comparison on the subsequent behavior of lower socioeconomic status black children four to five and seven to eight years of age. The effects of four conditions of social comparison are measured with respect to the children's self-reinforcement, self-confidence, and task persistence. Also evaluated are the effects of contingent versus noncontingent reward in the social comparison situation. The results indicate that positive social comparison yielded more self-reinforcement than negative social comparison. Younger children displayed more self-confidence than older children. This finding closely resembles the effects of repeated failure experiences on children and lends support to the contention that the social comparison process is related to the dimension of success and failure. It appears that the effects of an experimented manipulation of social comparison are somewhat different for children from black, lower socioeconomic status than for white children from similar backgrounds. (Author/DE)