This page discusses amplifying feedback cycles and the influences that reinforce and inhibit them, primarily using a sound system as an example.

Most people have experienced audio feedback, that sudden, piercing screech from a sound system. Understanding audio feedback provides a foundation for understanding the use of amplifying feedback in two areas covered on this website: (1) the development of human problems, and (2) escalating climate change.

Here is the amplifying feedback cycle that drives audio feedback.

Diagram: The feedback cycle amplifying the screech of audio feedback.

In this audio feedback cycle:

• An increase in the microphone input volume tends to
• increase the amplifier output of the sound, which tends to
• increase the loudspeaker volume, which tends to
• increase the microphone input volume, and then the cycle repeats.

The louder the screech gets, the louder it gets.

I describe the causal links as “tendencies” because the causal links are not certainties; they are tendencies because other influences on the system can override them.

Dominant, Active, Reversed

An amplifying feedback cycle can be:

• Dominant over a period when, from the start of the period to the end of the period, each of the changes encouraged by the cycle has occurred.
• Active, when one of the causal links is active, regardless of whether the cycle is dominant or not.
• Inactive or dormant when none of the causal links is active.
• Reversed: This can happen for some cycles.

I discuss this on the Arctic ice-albedo feedback cycle page.

An amplifying cycle can also be slow; for example, in the natural variation and selection cycle, natural selection continues, but the cycle can move slowly, waiting for a natural variation, like a mutation, to occur. See the evolution cycles page.

Describing cycles using dominance

To describe an amplifying feedback cycle, you can use tendencies, as in the above description, or equivalently, you can use dominance, as follows.

Over a period in which this cycle is dominant:

• An increase in the microphone input volume
• increases the amplifier output of the sound, which then
• increases the loudspeaker volume, which then
• increases the microphone input volume, and then the cycle repeats.

The disadvantage of describing tendencies is that repeated phrases like “which tends to increase” make it wordier than describing the cycle when it is dominant.

Intermittency

In a sound system, the audio feedback cycle sometimes takes control for brief periods, despite the operator who controls the amplifier. I discuss other feedback cycles that are intermittent:

• An evolution cycle: This cycle can pause, e.g., while a flood decimates a population, leaving less-adapted individuals.
• The warming Arctic ice albedo cycle: This cycle pauses when it’s dark or freezing. It can also run in reverse, becoming a cooling cycle.
• A problem gambling cycle: This cycle can pause, e.g., when a person attempts to quit.

Unrestrained amplifying cycles limit themselves.

Any Unrestrained amplifying cycle will eventually hit a limit and pause its amplification. Ways the audio cycle could pause include:

• An external influence reacts, breaking a causal link. It’s normally the sound operator who hears the screech and cuts the amplifier.
• The cycle exhausts a necessary resource when a component reaches an upper performance limit. For example, the amplifier reaches its upper power limit, and so cannot produce a “louder loudspeaker volume”. The amplifying cycle would pause after completing its transformation of the system, leaving a high, constant-volume screech.
• The cycle exhausts a necessary resource when a component breaks. For example, the loudspeaker blows a fuse. The vicious cycle would pause, having completed its transformation of the system, leaving silence rather than “louder loudspeaker output”.

Time taken by the audio cycle

In this audio feedback cycle, each physical change takes time:

• The link between the loudspeaker and the microphone is sound, which travels at 343 metres per second, so there is a small delay. Say the loudspeaker is 10 metres from the microphone, the sound travels that distance in 3 hundredths of a second.
• The link between the microphone and the amplifier is a rapid electrical connection, like when you flick a light switch, and the globe lights up; it seems instantaneous, but there is a small delay.
• The link between the amplifier and the speaker is another rapid electrical connection.

Each causal link takes time as change ripples around the cycle. The rapid speed of the causal links in an audio system means that in small performance spaces, there is negligible delay between what you see and what you hear. The downside of the rapid links is that the feedback screech can rapidly escalate to an unbearable level.

Amplifying feedback cycles

Any amplifying feedback cycle has a circular sequence of causal links between system attributes, in which an increase or decrease in one attribute influences the next, which then influences the next, creating a ripple effect around the cycle that amplifies the initial change. Then the cycle repeats (Capra, 1996, p. 56).

Feedback cycles reveal organisation.

A feedback cycle displays the organisation of the system, as distinct from its physical structure (Capra, 1997, p. 63).

Maruyama & his Second Cybernetics

Maruyama (1968) revolutionised systems theory by focusing on amplifying feedback cycles and their creative nature. He called his theory “the second cybernetics”, in contrast with earlier cybernetics, which focused on the destructive nature of amplifying feedback and mechanistic, damping feedback cycles. According to Maruyama:

• Amplifying feedback cycles are widespread (p. 304).
• Amplifying feedback cycles can disrupt the existing order and create a new order. For example, rock weathering is an amplifying feedback process that is (1) a vicious cycle in that it destroys rock, but also (2) a creative, virtuous cycle in that it creates fertile soil and forests (p. 305).
• These feedback cycles interact and can support or counterbalance one another, producing stability, oscillation, or transformation. (p. 312).
• Amplifying feedback cycles between people can cause problems; for example, two aggressive individuals can easily escalate a misunderstanding into a physical fight.
• These cycles can also occur within a person, causing problems. For example, reduced self-confidence can lead to poor performance, which in turn can further reduce self-confidence (p. 312).
• In psychotherapy, the goal should be to break vicious, damaging feedback cycles underlying the presenting problem and to initiate virtuous feedback cycles that alleviate the problem (p. 312).

Alternative names for feedback cycles

You can call an amplifying feedback loop a:

• Positive feedback,
• Deviation amplifying mutual causal process (Maruyama)
• Self-amplifying feedback loop,
• Self-reinforcing cycle,
• Vicious cycle, and
• Virtuous cycle

You can call a damping feedback loop a:

• Negative feedback,
• Balancing feedback,
• Stabilising feedback, and
• Deviation counteracting mutual causal process (Maruyama)

Amplifying feedback & other influences

Here is a more detailed consideration of the influences on amplifying feedback cycles. The following table provides an overview of the influences that reinforce a considered amplifying feedback cycle, and those that inhibit it.

Inhibiting amplifying feedback

First, consider the things that can inhibit an amplifying feedback cycle.

Inhibitor: A damping feedback cycle.

A damping feedback cycle can control an amplifying feedback cycle. Damping reduces the deviation of a system variable from its target value. Damping feedback maintains the system, whereas amplifying feedback tends to revolutionise the system.

Consider the damping feedback cycle that constrains the audio feedback amplifying cycle. It is the sound operator who hears the feedback escalating and adjusts the controls to damp it. Here is a diagram of the damping feedback cycle.

More Deviation: Excessive Loudspeaker volume Less		More Control: The operator reduces the amplifier’s power. More

Diagram: The feedback cycle damping the screech of audio feedback.

In this damping cycle:

• More excessive volume tends to cause
• more control, which tends to cause
• less excessive volume.

The nature of any damping feedback cycle

In general, a damping feedback cycle has a circular sequence of causal connections, as does the sound system damping cycle shown above. The cycle differs from an amplifying feedback cycle because, in a damping cycle, a deviation in one system attribute, such as a boat’s deviation from its target course, triggers a corrective action that reduces that deviation.

By contrast, the opposite occurs in amplifying feedback, where an increase in one system attribute causes a further increase in that attribute.

Sailing boat damping cycle diagram

The steering of a sailing boat is another example of a damping feedback cycle. Here is this damping cycle.

More Deviation: The sailing boat heads to the right of the target direction. Less		More Control: The sailor pushes the tiller further to the right. More

Diagram: The feedback cycle damping the sailing boat’s deviation from course.

In this damping cycle:

• More deviation to the right of the target tends to cause
• more control: the sailor pushes the tiller more to the right, which tends to
• lessen the deviation of the boat to the right.

Inhibitor: Other feedback cycles

Some amplifying feedback cycles can weaken others. While many vicious cycles can drive a client’s problem, say, problem gambling, activating an alternative interest, such as gardening, sets up virtuous, amplifying feedback cycles that support the alternative activity and counter the vicious problem-gambling cycles. Any weakening of a vicious gambling cycle is a move towards recovery.

A simple audio system has no other feedback loops, so consider the amplifying feedback cycle of foxes breeding, which inhibits the amplifying feedback cycle of rabbits breeding. Here, three feedback cycles interact.

Predator-Prey Example

This predator-prey example shows the interaction of only three feedback cycles, creating a complex system. (The understanding of human behaviour presented here involves a vast number of feedback cycles and is a far more complex system.)

Here is the rabbit breeding cycle.

More Rabbits More		More Rabbit Breeding More

Diagram: The breeding feedback cycle amplifying rabbit numbers.

In this breeding cycle: (1) more rabbits tend to produce (2) more breeding, which tends to produce (3) more rabbits, and then (4) the cycle repeats.

The fox-breeding cycle has precisely the same form as the rabbit-breeding cycle:

More Foxes More		More Fox Breeding More

Diagram: The breeding feedback cycle amplifying fox numbers.

Now, foxes prey on rabbits, as shown in the following cycle.

More Foxes Fewer		Fewer Rabbits Fewer

Diagram: The feedback cycle organising the interaction between foxes and rabbits.

In this cycle: (1) more foxes predating tends to produce (2) fewer rabbits, which tends to produce (3) fewer foxes, which tends to produce (4) more rabbits, which tends to produce (5) more foxes, and then (6) the cycle repeats.

Mathematical models of predator-prey populations predict that these populations tend to oscillate, and investigation of natural populations supports this. See the Wikipedia entry on the Lotka-Volterra equations.

This example shows that amplifying feedback cycles interact in complex ways.

Inhibitor: External events

External events can disrupt an amplifying feedback cycle. In a sound system, an electrical power failure would disrupt the audio feedback, although, because episodes of audio feedback are so brief, this would be an unlikely occurrence.

Reinforcement of amplifying feedback cycles

Reinforcement: an amplifying feedback reinforces itself

An amplifying feedback is self-reinforcing. Unimpeded, it transforms its system, destroying the old system and creating a new one. For example, the unimpeded audio feedback could blow a fuse in the sound system, leaving the event without sound.

Reinforcement: a group of amplifying feedback cycles

Other amplifying feedback cycles can reinforce the amplifying cycle under consideration, forming a group of mutually reinforcing cycles. This reinforcement occurs in the amplification of problem gambling and global warming, but not in the simpler sound system.

Reinforcement: External events

External events can reinforce an amplifying feedback cycle. Global warming provides an example in which burning fossil fuels is the external influence reinforcing the amplifying feedbacks driving the warming.

Amplifying feedback & rapid change

Once an amplifying feedback cycle becomes and remains dominant, it brings escalating change, initially slow and then explosive, until the transformation it initiates reaches a limit and the amplifying cycle stops.

For example, when a person in a chair leans back past the tipping point, a vicious cycle takes hold. The rotational energy increases as the chair tips. The only way to stop the vicious cycle is (1) an external intervention, e.g., someone catching the chair, or (2) the cycle running its course and hitting a limit when the chair hits the floor. See the “Tipping Point” page on this website.

Reversibility

Some amplifying feedback cycles are reversible as they can amplify changes in either direction.

The amplifying feedback cycle driving the audio feedback screech is irreversible. If a person put their hand over the microphone, reducing the microphone’s input volume, the cycle would not produce further decreases in volume. It would continue to increase the volume.

The Arctic sea ice spiral is currently amplifying global heating, but if cooling were to occur, it could also amplify global cooling. See my page on the Arctic sea ice spiral.

The physical training cycle

Here is another example of an amplifying feedback cycle.

Do more of a physical activity until fatigued, and then allow recovery		Increases your capacity to do the activity.

Diagram: The feedback cycle amplifying fitness.

In this cycle:

• Doing more of a physical activity: exercising until fatigued and then allowing time for the body to repair and strengthen the stressed tissues, tends to
• increase your capacity to do it, which tends to lead to
• Doing more of the activity, and the cycle repeats.

The causal links in this cycle are not certainties; they are tendencies, as other factors can intervene. For example, when the activity brings injury, doing more does not tend to increase your capacity to do it.

The training amplifying cycle also works in reverse: “If you don’t use it, you lose it”. In this amplifying cycle:

Avoiding a physical activity.		Decreases your capacity to do the activity.

Diagram: The feedback cycle amplifying loss of ability.

A self-organising system

Systems that receive a continual input of energy can become self-organising. For example, the sun provides the energy that drives the water cycle with its evaporation, rainfall, and river flow. This energy shapes the character of rivers as people know them, creating rapids and eddies that vary predictably with water levels (Capra, 1996).

I propose that the damping and amplifying feedback cycles that organise a person’s life: their actions, feelings and ideas, form a self-organising system that continually shapes a person’s character.

See my page on Self-organising human functioning

Conclusion

When I worked as a problem gambling counsellor, I found amplifying feedback cycles useful for understanding and assisting my clients. The cycles help understand what drives and resolves problems. Then I realised that other amplifying cycles were driving global heating, and that systems theory provides insight into how any system works.

“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)

Amplifying feedback cycles do not exist in isolation. Recognising how the influences discussed above can increase or decrease the impact of these cycles enhances the credibility of systems theory and our understanding of how amplifying feedback affects our lives and our planet.

Counselling Pages & References

The introduction to my counselling pages includes:

• Links to the other counselling pages, which include pages describing how this approach relates to other counselling practices and theories, are at the top of the introduction page
• References for all the counselling pages are at the end of the introduction page.

First loaded Nov 2025. Updated: 26 June 2026