self-reinforcing
adjective
self-re·in·forc·ing
ˌself-ˌrē-ən-ˈfȯr-siŋ
: tending or serving to strengthen itself : reinforcing itself
According to this thinking, a self-reinforcing feedback loop—bigger brains, better tools, more food—drove forward the process of human evolution.—
Michael Rothschild
Michael RothschildJust as many negative behaviors are self-reinforcing, we often view related positive behaviors as more trouble than they're worth.—Colleen Dunn Bates
Colleen Dunn BatesExamples of self-reinforcing in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The group wants to discourage this self-reinforcing cycle of electing more and more extreme ends of the political spectrum.
—Kayla Dwyer, The Indianapolis Star, 11 Apr. 2024
Demographers have previously warned that once fertility rates fall beneath a certain threshold, lifting them becomes extremely difficult because of self-reinforcing economic and social mechanisms.
—Chad De Guzman, TIME, 3 Apr. 2024
These trends are now self-reinforcing as more installations mean more use cases, which generates more data, in turn driving wider applications, leading to yet more installations.
—Kevin O'Marah, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2024
That’s the one market where the world’s most popular messenger—WhatsApp—has yet to build a dominant foothold, and where iPhone’s own dominance, especially among the young, boosts iMessage through a self-reinforcing network effect.
—Zak Doffman, Forbes, 11 Feb. 2024
Steinberg and Stone argue that this change to a more circular orbit is a self-reinforcing process.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 17 Jan. 2024
The dominance of dominant caste men within the tech ecosystem is likely to be self-reinforcing, since the economic opportunities that the tech sector affords remain concentrated in a single social group.
—Akanksha Singh, WIRED, 4 Sep. 2023
This self-reinforcing phenomenon has only been helped along by Trump’s two arrests, something anti-Trump donors couldn’t anticipate.
—Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 1 Aug. 2023
Although ubiquitous state surveillance could prove effective in the short term, the danger is that authoritarian states will be undermined by the forms of self-reinforcing bias that machine learning facilitates.
—Henry Farrell, Foreign Affairs, 31 Aug. 2022
Kayla Dwyer, The Indianapolis Star, 11 Apr. 2024
Demographers have previously warned that once fertility rates fall beneath a certain threshold, lifting them becomes extremely difficult because of self-reinforcing economic and social mechanisms.
—Chad De Guzman, TIME, 3 Apr. 2024
These trends are now self-reinforcing as more installations mean more use cases, which generates more data, in turn driving wider applications, leading to yet more installations.
—Kevin O'Marah, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2024
That’s the one market where the world’s most popular messenger—WhatsApp—has yet to build a dominant foothold, and where iPhone’s own dominance, especially among the young, boosts iMessage through a self-reinforcing network effect.
—Zak Doffman, Forbes, 11 Feb. 2024
Steinberg and Stone argue that this change to a more circular orbit is a self-reinforcing process.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 17 Jan. 2024
The dominance of dominant caste men within the tech ecosystem is likely to be self-reinforcing, since the economic opportunities that the tech sector affords remain concentrated in a single social group.
—Akanksha Singh, WIRED, 4 Sep. 2023
This self-reinforcing phenomenon has only been helped along by Trump’s two arrests, something anti-Trump donors couldn’t anticipate.
—Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 1 Aug. 2023
Although ubiquitous state surveillance could prove effective in the short term, the danger is that authoritarian states will be undermined by the forms of self-reinforcing bias that machine learning facilitates.
—Henry Farrell, Foreign Affairs, 31 Aug. 2022
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'self-reinforcing.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near self-reinforcing
Cite this Entry
“Self-reinforcing.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-reinforcing. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.
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