I learned about two types of feedback — balancing and reinforcing feedback.
Balancing feedback is feedback that helps a system achieve stability — not too hot, not too cold, just right.
Reinforcing feedback seeks to create more inflows of a thing based on an initial result. Example, let’s say you learned how to play a difficult piece of music and receive a rush a confidence, a positive reinforcement feedback loop may leave feeling encouraged to learn another skill. If you practiced your entire for a major performance and bomb and then give up music that’s the result of a reinforcement feedback loop in the negative direction.
Positive and negative feedback are neither good nor bad. Their desirability is a result of the goal.
Compound interest is a powerful force, Einstein argued the most powerful force, and it is a form of positive feedback.
Gaslighting and manipulating someone may lead them to behave in a way that you prefer which may cause you to continue that form of abuse. The abuser received a positive reinforcement and persisted (and perhaps escalated) their behavior. I believe you and I could agree that this is positive feedback in the wrong direction.
I speculate that we create feedback loops in our mind without realizing it. And I wonder how and when those loops become created. Childhood? After a major event? And, I wonder what type of stimulus is required to force these feedback loops to move in more healthier directions or seek some form of balance.
It seems to me that perhaps one of the most powerful ways we can improve the system that is our self may be through the identification, assessment, and improvement of our feedback loops.