Consequently, distrust has an inherent tendency to endorse and reinforce itself in social interaction – a good example, perhaps indeed the very kernel, of those processes to which Merton devoted a classic essay under the title of 'self-fulfilling prophecy'. Underlying these processes is, as it were, an inverted feedback principle, that is, a wrongly or insecurely adapted system brings itself into equilibrium with its environment not by correcting itself on the basis of its effects but by finding its effects endorsed and hence offering occasions for new causes.

XREF: Connects to Merton's classic self-fulfilling prophecy essay; also echoes the inverted-feedback concept found in systems theory and cybernetics.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 273