A lot of things can happen to break a self-perpetuating cycle. But it's usually some extreme event. The cycle keeps optimizing in a particular direction and this eventually leads to an extreme situation which becomes unsustainable. The natural equilibrium of a self-reinforcing cycle is not static but drifting towards some extreme unstable state. There is usually a point where it breaks down.

But I suspect that being able to figure out causation doesn't matter much from a survival or reproduction perspective because cause and effect are just labels.

Reality in a self-perpetuating cycle is probably like Condition A is 70% responsible and Condition B is 30% responsible for a problem but they feedback and exacerbate each other... You could argue that Condition A is the cause and Condition B is the effect because B < A but that's not quite right IMO. Also, it's not quite right to say that because A happened first, that A is the cause of a severe problem... The problem would never have gotten so bad to such extent without feedback from B.