Positive Feedback
A process that occurs in a feedback loop in which the effects of a small disturbance on a system include an increase in the magnitude of the perturbation.
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Origin
The term originated in electronics engineering, with "positive feed-back" first appearing in a 1924 Bell System Technical Journal paper by H. T. Friis and A. G. Jensen describing amplifier oscillations. Harold Black at Bell Labs formalised the positive/negative feedback distinction in his 1934 work on the feedback amplifier. Norbert Wiener generalised both concepts to all goal-directed systems in Cybernetics (1948), transforming them from engineering terms into a universal framework for biology, economics, and social systems.
Updated February 22, 2026