This study investigated the effects of situational and generalized expectancies for success on choices of immediate, less valuable, noncontingent rewards as opposed to more valuable contingent rewards. Measures of generalized expectancy for success were administered to 8th-grade boys who later worked on a series of problems and obtained either success, failure, or no information for performance. Thereafter, each S chose between less valuable, noncontingent rewards and more valuable rewards whose attainment was contingent on successful solutions of problems varying in their similarity-dissimilarity to the original problems and/or an additional delay period. As predicted, contingent rewards were chosen more after success than failure and Ss discriminated between specific contingencies. The effects of situational success and failure tended to minimize the effects of generalized expectancies. Moreover, in the no-information condition children with high generalized expectancies for success chose more contingent rewards than those with low expectancies and behaved like Ss in the success condition. Children with low generalized expectancies who received no information about their performance behaved like those with similarly low generalized expectancies who had obtained failure. Following failure, generalized expectancies for success affected willingness to wait for larger rewards even when their attainment was independent of performance. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)