Human Behaviour & Feedback

Feedback cycles organise human behaviour, with self-reinforcing feedback cycles organising change.

• Vicious cycles organise decay and the development of problems.
• Virtuous cycles organise growth and recovery.

I illustrate this by analysing how feedback cycles organise problem gambling. These ideas are grounded in established therapeutic frameworks, amplifying feedback cycles based on:

• Malan’s psychodynamic theory, and
• Weinberg’s theory of compulsive habits.

Feedback is a key concept in systems theory and has a prominent place in family therapy.

“The first and perhaps most influential model of how families operate was cybernetics, the study of feedback mechanisms in self-regulating systems.” (Nichols, 2008, p.98)

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).

Here is Nichols’ vicious cycle as a diagram. Note that it has the same structure as many of the other cycles I present on these pages.

Peter Senge, a systems scientist, writes about the importance of seeing feedback cycles:

“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)

Key Amplifying Feedback Cycles

Here are key amplifying feedback cycles that organise human behaviour, with examples from problem gambling and from client Zed.

In my counselling work, several of these amplifying cycles were directly useful with clients. Others were not, but they help explain how systems theory applies to human behaviour.

A Vicious Gambling Cycle Example

In a counselling session with client Zed, I identified a vicious cycle that drove his gambling. It was a revelation to him. (Zed is a fictional client.)

As we talked, I wrote keywords that he used on a whiteboard diagram under three headings: (1) what he liked about gambling, (2) what he disliked, and (3) other issues in his life. The above vicious cycle emerged from this larger diagram. I summed it up, saying to him, “There is a cycle here: (1) the more you gamble to feel respected, while on winning streaks, (2) the more money you lose and the less respect you get at home and at work, so (3) the more you need respect, and (4) this throws you back to gamble more. This vicious cycle is making your life difficult.”

The process of generating and explaining the cyclic intervention is critical; the page describing the example counselling session details this process.

I began using this sort of cyclic logic with clients, and an astute colleague lent me “The Foundations of Family Therapy” by Lynn Hoffman. I realised systems theory supported this approach.

Psychodynamic Defences as Vicious Cycles

A psychodynamic defence can create a vicious cycle. This cycle is widely applicable – and it has the same form as client Zed’s vicious gambling cycle.

See Psychodynamics and my Cyclic Intervention.

Cycles Amplifying a Chosen Activity

See my page on Weinberg’s Action Approach.

Cycles Amplifying Rejection of an Activity

See my page on Weinberg’s Action Approach.

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Virtuous recovery cycles

Similar cycles to those that organise problem development can also organise recovery from a problem behaviour:

• Cycles amplifying the choice of recovery activities
• Cycles amplifying the rejection of the problematic behaviour in favour of recovery activities
• Cycles based on the rewards from recovery activities.

For client Zed, an element of recovery could have been going to Gamblers Anonymous (GA) meetings, offering support to other participants, earning their respect, and so reducing his need to gain respect via gambling. Going to GA meetings would establish three recovery cycles that would counter the dominance of his gambling-amplifying cycle.

First is the cycle based on the rewards of gaining respect from other GA members.

In this hypothetical feedback cycle:

• Zed’s increased assistance to others tends to
• Increase the respect he gains from those he helped, which tends to
• Increase his motivation to assist others, which tends to
• Increase his assistance to others, and then the cycle repeats.

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Second, his attendance at GA meetings directly reinforces his motivation to attend.

See my page on Weinberg’s Action Approach.

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Third, there is the cycle which decreases his motivation to go gambling due to his rejection of gambling in favour of attending GA.

See my page on Weinberg’s Action Approach.

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These virtuous amplifying feedback cycles could have supported Zed’s recovery.

After identifying a vicious gambling cycle, it is helpful to identify an activity that deals in some way with the dread that drives their problem and explain to the client how dealing with the dread can create a virtuous, self-reinforcing cycle of recovery.

Learning that a vicious problem cycle is dominating your life can be frightening. Understanding that you can create virtuous recovery cycles can counter this fear by providing an escape route and generating hope.

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Reward cycles

When an activity produces a reward, this tends to increase motivation for the activity.

In this amplifying cycle, a person:

• Increases their performance of an activity, which tends to
• Increase the rewards from the activity, which tends to
• Increase their motivation for the activity, which tends to
• Increase their performance of the activity, and the cycle repeats.

For many gamblers, it is a big win that gives them unrealistic hopes about gambling and hooks them. A big win can be dangerous for a needy person. Winning streaks certainly infatuated client Zed, as discussed above.

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Tolerance Cycle

When a person repeats a rewarding activity often enough, the reward’s impact diminishes: tolerance develops. This pattern occurs in drug use, alcohol dependence, and problem gambling. As tolerance increases, gamblers must risk larger amounts of money to achieve the same level of excitement they once felt with smaller bets. That escalating need for stimulation creates yet another amplifying feedback cycle, where rising tolerance drives riskier behaviour, and riskier behaviour further entrenches the addiction.

In this cycle:

• Increased gambling tends to
• Increase tolerance, which tends to
• Reduce the excitement gained from the same amount of gambling, which tends to
• Increase gambling to achieve the same excitement, and the cycle repeats.

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Damage Control Cycles

 
When an activity results in negative consequences like punishment, damage, or shocks, those consequences tend to bring control that limits or stops the activity. This is damping feedback or negative feedback.

In this cycle, a person:

• Monitors the damage caused by an activity, and when the damage is excessive, they tend to
• Increase their control over the activity and decrease their use of the activity, which tends to
• Reduce the damage, and then the monitoring continues.

For a gambler, the ”unacceptable damage” can be lost money, time, or relationships. When a gambler hits a limit, like running out of cash, their values determine what constitutes unacceptable damage and whether they circumvent the limit, say by stealing to fund gambling.

*** Damage Encouraging an Activity

While damage from an activity tends to bring control, this often does not happen. Perversely, sometimes damage can lead to increased use of the activity. As mentioned above, damage operates this way within psychodynamic defence cycles. I repeat this diagram.

See Psychodynamics and my Cyclic Intervention.

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Denial Cycles

When a person denies the extent of the damage, the damage is ineffective at discouraging the activity. Amplifying feedback cycles can form around the denial of any problematic behaviour. For example, problem gamblers often suffer damage that shocks them; they deny the severity of the shocks and continue gambling, allowing the shocks to escalate in severity.

Gamblers often hang onto their habit through thick and thin, and so remain stuck in this vicious cycle:

• An increase in their gambling tends to
• Increase the severity of the shocks they experience when problems emerge in their finances or relationships. The shocks can stop their gambling for a while. Still, eventually, when they resume gambling, this tends to
• Increase their ability to deny the severity of these shocks, which tends to
• increase their gambling, and then the cycle repeats.

This cycle is an example of a psychodynamic defence, denial, forming a vicious cycle.

A gambler faces a choice each time the extent of the gambling damage shocks them. They can dismiss the shock, letting the destructive cycle tighten its grip, or treat it as a wake-up call to regain control. The more a gambler ignores these shocks, the more damaging they become. What once felt alarming — losing fifty dollars — eventually seems trivial. Over time, it may take losing something as significant as their house to shock them. Even then, many still say things like, “The only way I can recover my losses is to keep on gambling”. As denial grows, it distorts their thinking, alters their values, and gradually reshapes their character.

I found that discussing this denial amplification cycle with clients was a constructive way to discuss a person’s gambling and what drives it.

The influences on self-reinforcing feedback

Amplifying cycles drive change, including the emergence of problems and recovery. So, it is helpful to understand what inhibits and what reinforces an amplifying cycle. The table below outlines these influences.

I also discuss these influences in Introducing Systems Theory and Audio Feedback.

Boosting amplifying feedback cycles

First, consider the influences that reinforce or boost an amplifying feedback cycle.

Boost: Amplifying cycles are self-reinforcing.

All amplifying cycles are self-reinforcing.

Boost: Mutually reinforcing amplifying cycles.

Amplifying feedback cycles can support one another, forming groups of mutually reinforcing cycles. Many of the amplifying cycles discussed here reinforce one another; for example, here are two cycles that both escalate client Zed’s gambling and his dread of not being respected.

The first is the cycle around Zed’s choice to gamble:

Diagram: This feedback cycle amplifies Zed’s (1) choice to gamble and (2) motivating dread.

The second is the cycle discussed in the counselling session with Zed:

Climate change offers another example of mutually reinforcing feedback cycles. I describe nine amplifying feedback cycles that are driving global warming.

Boost: Reinforcing Influences

External influences can reinforce an amplifying feedback cycle. For instance, when client 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, and this could reinforce his dread-driven gambling cycle.

Curbing amplifying feedback cycles

Having considered factors that reinforce amplifying cycles, now consider those that inhibit or curb them.

Curb: Damping feedback cycles

Punishment or unacceptable damage can curb an amplifying feedback cycle.

See above: Damage Control Cycle.

Curb: Opposing amplifying cycles

Amplifying feedback cycles often oppose one another. For example, a cycle driving problem gambling opposes a cycle driving recovery. Here is a vicious cycle driving Zed’s gambling:

This vicious cycle would oppose the following virtuous recovery cycle:

Curb: Disruptive influences

Many influences can disrupt an amplifying cycle. For example, a vicious gambling cycle can be paused by:

• Family commitments
• The need for sleep
• Hospital admission.

Curb: Exhausting a needed resource

Unconstrained amplifying feedback cycles eventually hit a limit and pause because they exhaust a necessary resource, leaving the system transformed. For example:

• The unrestrained feedback cycle that is accelerating the melting of Arctic sea ice threatens to pause only when the Arctic is ice-free in summer. It would resume the following summer, melting the ice formed over winter and leaving a transformed Arctic with no permanent ice.
• An unlimited feedback loop in a sound system can amplify sound until the system reaches maximum power or a component fails.

Numerous external limits constrain the amplifying feedback cycles that drive human problems. The limits for a vicious gambling cycle are:

• Financial limits such as the money in their wallets, available loans, and crime policing.
• Time constraints such as gambling venue opening hours and the time required 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 they steal money, a court could jail them.

Most external limits pause 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.

Delays in the feedback cycle

An unconstrained amplifying feedback cycle causes increasingly rapid change. For example, a person leans back past their chair’s tipping point and crashes to the ground. However, in most systems, something limits the change, e.g., a friend catches the chair before it crashes to the floor, or some processes are inherently slow, like melting ice.

Other examples of feedback cycles

For other examples of feedback cycles, see my pages on:

• Audio feedback
• Global heating
• The evolution of life on Earth
• Symmetrical & complementary relationships
• An object that leans beyond its tipping point.
• Right-wing politics, migration, and global heating.

Systems theory applies to any system.

Summary: Feedback cycles organising gambling

Conclusion

A complex network of feedback cycles organises problem gambling and recovery, and these cycles are based on general theories of human behaviour:

• Malan’s psychodynamics suggests that defences can create vicious circles.
• Weinberg’s theory of compulsive habits is readily understood as amplifying feedback cycles.
• Strategic family therapists use systems theory with its feedback cycles as a key theoretical construct (Nichols, p. 422).

This grounding in general theory makes me confident that these concepts apply beyond problem gambling. I propose that:

• Feedback cycles organise human behaviour, and
• Amplifying feedback cycles drive behavioural change, including the development of problem behaviour and recovery.

Related pages

The introduction to my counselling pages:

• Introduces the counselling section of this website
• Describes the process by which I developed these ideas
• Links to all the other counselling pages on this website
• Contains the counselling references to other authors

I briefly touch on complementary branches of systems theory: Chaos theory, which shows how feedback can produce complexity, unpredictability, and instability, and self-organisation, which shows how feedback can produce order.

• Self-organisation of human behaviour
• Chaos Theory (a work in progress)

First loaded: 21 December 2025; Updated 22 August 2026.