Self-reinforcing feedback and human behaviour

Diagram: the vicious cycle driving a client’s problem gambling.

Self-reinforcing feedback cycles, a core concept in systems theory, organise human behaviour: how problems take hold and how recovery occurs. This page uses a problem gambling counselling session and intervention as an example of these cyclic dynamics.

Self-reinforcing feedback offers a way to understand families. Often, when families attempt to solve a problem, their solution can inadvertently exacerbate the issue, creating a vicious cycle where the family’s solution becomes the problem. (Nichols, 2008, p. 159).

Peter Senge, a systems scientist, writes:

“Structures [feedback cycles] of which we are unaware hold us prisoner. Conversely, learning to see the structures within which we operate begins a process of freeing ourselves from previously unseen forces and ultimately mastering the ability to work with and change them.” (Senge, 1992, p 94)

The influences on self-reinforcing feedback

Here, I discuss the amplifying and damping feedback cycles that shape gamblers’ lives. It is the amplifying cycles that drive change, the emergence of problems and or recovery, so what inhibits these cycles and what reinforces them is critical. The table below outlines these influences, and the subsequent text discusses them. I also discuss these influences in Introducing systems theory and audio feedback.

InfluenceReinforcing influencesInhibiting influences
The amplifying feedback cycle under consideration influences itself.The amplifying feedback cycle reinforces itself. All amplifying feedback cycles are self-reinforcing.  The amplifying feedback cycle, when unimpeded, eventually exhausts some resource it needs to continue, and pauses, having transformed its system. All amplifying cycles eventually hit a limit.
Damping feedback cycles  –A damping feedback cycle may control the considered amplifying cycle and maintain system stability, opposing the deviation of a variable from its target value.    
Other amplifying feedback cyclesOther amplifying cycles can reinforce the considered amplifying cycle, forming a group of mutually reinforcing cycles.  Other amplifying cycles can oppose the considered cycle.  
External eventsExternal events can strengthen the considered amplifying cycle.  External events can disrupt the considered amplifying cycle.  

Feedback cycles and problem gambling

A network of feedback cycles organises problem gambling. In my counselling work, several of these amplifying cycles were directly useful with clients. Others were not, but contribute to a broader understanding of how systems theory models human behaviour.

Here are some of these feedback cycles. Note that many of the amplifying cycles reinforce one another.

The vicious cycle driving Zed’s gambling.

Here is a brief overview of the self-reinforcing feedback cycle that emerged during the session with client Zed.

This diagram shows the dynamic driving this client’s problem gambling.

Towards the end of the session, I summed it up, saying to him:

  • There is a cycle here.
  • The more you gamble to feel respected while you’re winning,
  • the more money you lose and the less respect you get at home and at work, so
  • the more you need respect, and
  • this throws you back to gamble more.
  • This vicious cycle is making life difficult for you.

The method for generating and using the cyclic intervention is critical; the linked page describes the counselling session.

I began using this sort of cyclic logic with my clients, and then one of my colleagues lent me “The Foundations of Family Therapy” by Lynn Hoffman. I realised that systems theory supported this sort of approach.

Psychodynamic defences as vicious cycles

A psychodynamic defence can create a vicious cycle.

This diagram shows a psychodynamic defence as a vicious cycle linking (1) dread, (2) the defence against the dread, and (3) the damage resulting from the defence.

See Psychodynamics and my Cyclic Intervention.

Escalating gambling, shocks, and denial

Self-reinforcing cycles can also form around denial. Problem gamblers suffer many shocks resulting from their gambling. When they deny the severity of these shocks and continue gambling, their ability to deny shocks increases, forming another amplifying feedback cycle.

More GamblingMore severe shocks from gambling
More denial

Problem gamblers commonly hang onto their gambling habit and remain stuck in this cycle:

  • Gambling more tends to
  • increase the severity of the shocks they experience, which tends to
  • increase their denial of the shock, which enables them to
  • increase their gambling.

Each time a gambling-related shock occurs, the gambler faces a choice: they can deny the shock, which reinforces the destructive cycle, or acknowledge the shock and use it as a wake-up call to control their gambling. However, problem gamblers often fail to limit their gambling and become trapped in this destructive cycle where gambling, emotional shocks, and denial all intensify. Initially losing fifty dollars may have shocked them, but eventually some can lose their house and more. A problem gambler will have overwhelming evidence of the futility of continuing gambling. Regardless, many still say that their only way to recover their losses is to keep on gambling. As denial grows, it distorts their thinking, alters their values, and gradually reshapes their character.

As a counsellor, I have found discussing this denial amplification cycle a constructive way to discuss a person’s gambling and what drives it.

Chosen activities become habits

Every voluntary action strengthens the motivations for the act and can become a habit. This concept is fundamental to the Action Approach (Weinberg, 1995).

I see this in terms of feedback: Amplifying feedback cycles form between “each chosen action” and “each of the action’s motivating ideas and feelings”. There is a separate cycle for each chosen action and each motivation, resulting in many cycles.

A chosen action strengthens the action’s motivations, leading to this amplifying feedback cycle.

In this cycle:

  • Each time you take a chosen action, this tends to
  • increase the strength of each idea and each feeling that motivated the action, which tends to
  • increase the likelihood of repeating the action.

See my page on Weinberg’s Action Approach and the cyclic intervention with client Zed.

Escalation of dread

It follows from the above cycle that when a chosen action is motivated in part by dread, each repetition of the action reinforces each motivation, including that dread.

Take a chosen action.Strengthen any motivating dread.

So, dread can escalate due to (1) the direct effect of the chosen act of gambling, as in the above cycle, and (2) the indirect effect of the damage caused by a psychodynamic defence.

This diagram shows a psychodynamic defence as a vicious cycle linking (1) dread, (2) the defence against the dread, and (3) the damage resulting from the defence.

Rejected activities

Choice usually involves rejecting alternatives, and each time a person rejects an activity, they weaken each motivation for each rejected activity. Amplifying feedback cycles form between “each rejected action” and “each of the rejected action’s motivating ideas and feelings”.

Rejecting an action.Weakens each idea and feeling motivating the rejected action.

In this cycle:

  • Each time you reject an action, this tends to
  • decrease the strength of each idea and each feeling that motivated the rejected action, which tends to
  • increase the likelihood of rejecting the action again.

For every chosen activity, such as gambling, there are many rejected activities, like reading, tennis, and spending time with family.

A habit is an activity that you choose many times, so it comes to seem right and necessary under the dual influence of: (1) the reinforcement of the motivators of the chosen activity, and (2) the weakening of the motivators of the rejected activities.

This dual influence makes sense of a problem gambler’s singular focus on gambling and their lack of interest in other activities.

Rewards as an amplifying feedback cycle

When an activity brings rewards, this forms an amplifying feedback cycle, e.g., when a gambler wins.

Take an action.Get more rewards from the activity.
Increase motivation to take the action.

The more you take an action, the more rewards you get from it, and you tend to become more motivated to repeat it. The impact of rewards can fade with repetition or strengthen.

Many gamblers have a big win, and this hooks them. A big win can be dangerous for a needy person, as it can spark unrealistic hopes. Winning streaks certainly infatuated client Zed.

Reinforcing Influences

External influences can reinforce an amplifying feedback cycle. For instance, when Zed saw someone from his old school, it could trigger memories of students bullying him, heighten his craving for respect, and further fuel his dread-driven gambling cycle. Likewise, when a car cut him off while he was cycling, he could interpret it as a sign of disrespect, feel a flash of road rage, and this feeling could also reinforce the amplifying cycle.

Problem gambling: Inhibitors

Here are the inhibitors of problem gambling, including amplifying cycles that support recovery.

Gambling Losses: Damping feedback

When an activity results in damage or adverse consequences, a damping feedback cycle occurs. In gambling, losses usually inhibit gambling and prevent it from becoming a significant problem.

More

Deviation: Damage due to excessive use of money or time.

Less		More

Control: The gambler reduces their gambling.

More

In this cycle:

  • The upper arrows show “more excessive use of money or time” tending to cause the gambler to take “more control” and reduce their gambling.
  • The lower arrows show “more control” tending to cause “less deviation”.

This cycle is a damping cycle as more “excessive gambling” tends to cause less “excessive gambling”.

The gambler’s values determine what constitutes excessive gambling. When they hit a limit, like running out of cash, their values determine whether they circumvent it by stealing to fund gambling.

Damage usually weakens the motivation for an action, but, perversely, in compulsive habits, the damage can increase the habit’s use.

Transformations & Limits

Most system attributes cannot increase or decrease indefinitely. So, unconstrained amplifying feedback cycles continue until they reach a limit and pause, leaving the system transformed. For example:

The amplifying feedback cycle driving gambling faces a complex set of limits that are external to the gambler. There are:

  • Financial limits such as the money in their wallets, available loans, and crime policing.
  • Time limits like gambling venue opening hours, and the time needed for family, work, and sleep.
  • Relationship limits, e.g., the boundaries set by parents and partners
  • Limits on the rate of gambling in some forms of gambling, e.g. there is an upper limit to how fast you can play one poker machine.

When a gambler reaches any of these limits, they will have transformed their life in some way, for example:

  • after reaching the upper limit on their credit card, they might not be able to buy food,
  • after failing to repay a loan, a lender might repossess the car, and
  • after stealing money, a law court could gaol them.

The impact of most of these external limits is to pause the gambling, e.g., when the gambler runs out of money, or the gambling venue closes. Some forms of gambling limit the rate at which you can lose money, e.g., poker machines.

Disruptive influences

Disruptive influences can halt gambling and its escalation, for example:

  • Family commitments
  • The need for sleep
  • a hospital admission.

Virtuous recovery cycles

A gambler’s efforts to stop gambling naturally inhibit the vicious gambling cycle. Any activity that successfully engages the gambler can become a pathway to recovery.

After identifying a vicious gambling cycle, try to identify an activity that deals in some way with the dread that drives their gambling. Also, clearly explain to the client how this activity can be a virtuous, self-reinforcing cycle of recovery. A vicious cycle can be frightening, whereas a virtuous cycle can feed hope.

For client Zed, an element of recovery could have been going to Gamblers Anonymous meetings, offering support to other participants, earning their respect, and so reducing his need to gain respect via gambling. This activity could become a virtuous self-amplifying feedback cycle, as it would have reduced the dominance of his gambling amplifying cycle.

Zed gives more assistance to others.Zed gains more respect from others.

In this cycle:

  • Zed’s increased assistance to others would tend to
  • increase the respect he gained from those he helped, which would tend to
  • increase his assistance to others.

This virtuous amplifying feedback cycle could have supported Zed’s recovery.

Delays in the feedback cycle

An unconstrained amplifying feedback cycle will cause exponential change. An example of this is when a person leans back past the tipping point of their chair and crashes to the ground. However, in most systems, the change is not exponential because something disrupts the cycle, e.g., a friend catches the chair before it crashes to the floor, or some processes are inherently slow, like melting ice.

Problem gambling does not escalate exponentially because each of the above inhibiting factors slows the cycles driving the gambling. For client Zed, this included his attempts to stop gambling and the lack of frequent local horse races.

Feedback cycles organise other systems.

Systems theory is applicable to any system, so it provides a powerful framework for understanding human problems and recovery. I have described how feedback cycles organise problem gambling and reinforce this with examples of other systems:

Summary: The feedback cycles organising gambling

In summary, here are the key feedback cycles that organise problem gambling, starting with those that drive the escalation of gambling:

  • The perverse amplifying cycle in which gambling damage drives gambling, linking: (1) a dread, (2) gambling as a defence against the dread, and (3) the damage caused by the gambling.
  • The amplifying cycle linking: (1) gambling, (2) the gambling-related events that shock the gambler, and (3) the gambler’s denial of these shocks.
  • The amplifying cycle linking: (1) gambling and (2) the rewards of gambling.
  • Each choice to gamble strengthens the ideas and feelings that motivate it, forming many amplifying feedback cycles.
  • Each choice to gamble is also a rejection of alternative activities, which weakens the motivation to engage in the alternative activities. These rejections also form many amplifying feedback cycles.

Then there are the feedbacks that inhibit gambling:

  • The damping cycle in which the gambler recognises that they are gambling too much and acts to control it
  • The external limits that occur when gamblers do not constrain their gambling.
  • The virtuous recovery cycles that reinforce alternatives to gambling

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