A method and controller for a refrigerant pressure effecting component of a cooling system includes providing closed loop control over a pressure effecting component based on an error signal, performing a control algorithm that includes at least one programmably adjustable gain factor, and adaptably changing the programmably adjustable gain factor by periodically generating a new gain factor. More specifically, the system and method includes monitoring fluctuation in the error signal and generating a numeric value indicative of the percent fluctuation in the error signal over a predetermined period of time, then fuzzifying a numeric value to generate a set of fuzzy input values. A predetermined set of rules are applied to the fuzzy input values to generate a set of fuzzy output values, which are then defuzzified by a combining operation to yield the new gain factor.