Feedback Loops is outputs of a system are routed back as inputs, amplifying or dampening change. It sits in the Systems dimension (SYS) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-SYS-0014, within the Systems family. The core principle: outputs of a system are routed back as inputs, amplifying or dampening change. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Outputs of a system are routed back as inputs, amplifying or dampening change.
Plain-English Definition
Outputs of a system are routed back as inputs, amplifying or dampening change.
Feynman Explanation
What the system produces, the system consumes.
Core Principle
Outputs of a system are routed back as inputs, amplifying or dampening change.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Outputs of a system are routed back as inputs, amplifying or dampening change.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Organizations are built on feedback loops, intentional and accidental.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
What the system produces, the system consumes.
Examples
- Customer complaints improve the product, which attracts more customers.
- Organizations are built on feedback loops, intentional and accidental.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
Executives usually notice this element only after it has cost something. By then it looks like a one-off. It is not. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: outputs of a system are routed back as inputs, amplifying or dampening change. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: what the system produces, the system consumes. Every element in the Systems dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, organizations are built on feedback loops, intentional and accidental. It is amplified whenever organizations are built on feedback loops, intentional and accidental. Inside organizations that shows up as organizations are built on feedback loops, intentional and accidental. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to design loops that reward the behavior you want repeated. The test of any redesign here is simple: after the change, can you name what the organization is now doing less of? If not, the payoff structure did not actually move.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Design loops that reward the behavior you want repeated.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Design loops that reward the behavior you want repeated.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Old systems decline as new ones emerge in parallel; leaders steward both, not just kill the old or chase the new.
Map reinforcing (R) and balancing (B) feedback loops between variables to see system behavior.
A system with many interacting parts that learn and adapt.
Many interacting parts producing emergent behavior nobody designed.
Interdependent network of actors evolving together.
The whole has properties that the individual parts do not.
Systems maintain stability by self-regulating around a setpoint.
Stocks are accumulations; flows are rates of change that affect them.
Behavior emerges from structure, not from individuals.
Systems that gain from disorder.
Approach motivation — pursuit of rewards and goals.
Avoidance motivation — sensitivity to punishment, uncertainty, and threat.
Where Feedback Loops is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayPolicy Is Incentive Design
System-level payoff structures.
- Field guidePublic sector incentives
Budget rules, election cycles, blame avoidance.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Feedback Loops
- What is Feedback Loops?
- Feedback Loops is outputs of a system are routed back as inputs, amplifying or dampening change. It sits in the Systems dimension (SYS) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-SYS-0014, within the Systems family. The core principle: outputs of a system are routed back as inputs, amplifying or dampening change. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Feedback Loops?
- Organizations are built on feedback loops, intentional and accidental. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-SYS-0014).
- How is Feedback Loops exploited?
- Organizations are built on feedback loops, intentional and accidental.
- How do you design around Feedback Loops?
- Design loops that reward the behavior you want repeated.
- Which behavioral dimension does Feedback Loops belong to?
- Feedback Loops is classified in the Systems dimension (SYS) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Systems", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-SYS-0014 and its evidence grade is B.