Blog Post #4

     The Ratchet Effect refers to the idea in cultural evolution that once an evolution or change occurs, specifically a positive change, the behaviour becomes impossible to revert back to the previous behaviour. In the wild, we can see lots of examples of the ratchet effect. A popular one in Nova Scotia is the overfishing of fish in the water around the province. Cod began to be overfished in Atlantic waters in the mid 1900's, to a point where they are now extremely endangered, and cannot reproduce to their old levels, on par with the amount of fishing done to them.

    A real world personal experience that I can think of with the ratchet effect would be working out. When I work out for a consecutive period of time, I get much stronger and lift heavier weights. But when I got injured, I was forced to lift less, and lift lighter weights instead of my usual weight. Even though my body really needed the rest, I still physically and psychologically felt like I was set back, because my body was used to improving and going heavier, not lighter.

    Another example of the ratchet effect in my personal life was at my work in the summer. For my job, I worked hard and constantly got work done ahead of assigned deadlines, and as a result I would frequently take on extra work. However, I worked a bit too hard, and my boss and coworkers began to expect my higher performance as the status quo from me, which became annoying as I was then expected to increase my production and make it normal while being paid the same. My boss then would get mad at me if my production dipped below the "expected" level.

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