Discounting In Perfectionism - The Ratchet Effect
Help clients explore and understand how discounting achievements perpetuates perfectionism and leads to increasingly demanding standards (known as the ratchet effect).
Discounting In Perfectionism – The Ratchet Effect
This Discounting In Perfectionism tool explains a key process in perfectionism – discounting your achievements, which leads to even more striving. This ‘ratchet effect’ can play an important role in keeping perfectionism going.
Overview
When individuals with perfectionism successfully meet their demanding standards, these accomplishments are often discounted as “easy to do,” “no big deal,” or having “scope for improvement.” As a result, there is a little satisfaction in these achievements. This reinforces the need to strive and achieve in order to maintain positive self-evaluation, which leads individuals to set even higher standards for themselves. Consequently, individuals with perfectionism are likely to set ever-more demanding standards. In engineering, ratchets are useful devices which allow forward movement, but not backwards. The Discounting In Perfectionism - The Ratchet Effect handout illustrates the bias of discounting with reference to a ratchet metaphor.
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