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

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). 140 female undergraduates completed the state form of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental conditions (i.e., 2 evaluation threats by 2 traumatic history instructions). In groups of 7, Ss received specific (the project concerned development of local norms for measures of social intelligence) or innocuous information. After completion of an initial questionnaire, Ss either were told that traumatic history has no effect on task performance or received no instructions about filling out measures of the traumatic value of past life experiences and 2 manipulation checks. Results, as predicted, show that Ss emphasized 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 support the hypothesized self-protective reporting of traumatic life events. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)