In the context of adler's individual psychology, refers to an individual's attempt to overcome imagined or real inferiorities or weaknesses by developing one's own abilities.

The appropriate response is Compensation. It is a methodology whereby one conceals, deliberately or unwittingly, shortcomings, dissatisfactions, wants, or sentiments of insufficiency or inadequacy in one life territory through the delight or perfection in another range. Pay can conceal either genuine or envisioned insufficiency and individual or physical mediocrity. Positive pay may help one to conquer one's challenges. Then again, negative pay doesn't, which brings about a strengthened sentiment mediocrity.