Poor premorbid schizophrenics were shown to be primarily motivated to avoid censure and good premorbids to be relatively more sensitive to praise. It was demonstrated that when censure was used on a task with only two possible responses, poor premorbids perform better than good premorbids. The opposite relationship was demonstrated for the effects of praise, to which the good premorbids were more responsive. On a task with many responses the praise or censure gave little information as to the correct response. On this task, censure was demonstrated to be relatively more disruptive to the poor premorbids than praise, but the opposite to hold for the good premorbids. Comparisons with neutral conditions and normal Ss were also made.Data are not in agreement with regard to the effects of praise and censure on the performance of schizophrenics. In some studies, it was found that schizophrenics performed more poorly under censure than under neutral conditions (Alvarez, 19S7; Dunham, 19S9;Garmezy, 1952;Neiditch, 1963; Webb, 19SS). Other investigators have found, however, that schizophrenics performed better under censure than under neutral conditions (Atkinson & Robinson, 1961;Cavanaugh, 19S8;Cavanaugh, Cohen, & Lang, 1960; Olson, 19S8). In some studies schizophrenics when praised did not show an increment in performance in comparison to their performance under neutral conditions (e.g., Cavanaugh et al., 1960); although in a few studies their performance did improve under praise (e.g., D 'Alessio & Spence, 1963).Review of the literature suggests that the level of premorbid adjustment and the nature of the task can account for the differential performance shown by schizophrenics under praise and censure. Garmezy (1965) postulated that good premorbid schizophrenics are less sensitive to censure than poor premorbid 1 This article is based in part on a PhD dissertation submitted by the first author to the University of Pennsylvania in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD degree.