Adler's psychology (of use) today: personal history of traumatic life events as a self-handicapping strategy.

We investigated the hypothesis that the reporting of a history of traumatic life events may serve as a strategy to control attributions about performance in an evaluative setting (i.e., self-handicapping). Following from Alfred Adler's early theorization in the psychology of use, as well as more recent theory and research on self-handicapping, we predicted that individuals would emphasize the adversity of events and experiences in their background when an uncertain evaluation was expected and when a traumatic background would serve as a suitable excuse for potential failure. Results generally supported the hypothesized self-protective reporting of traumatic life events.