Introduction – The Quiet Theft
Imagine scrolling through Instagram and pausing on a photo of a woman in her sixties, standing confidently on a beach in a swimsuit. She looks fit, energetic, and entirely at ease with herself. The account belongs to Astrid Zeegen-Holt, a married grandmother from Devon who shares images of herself in swimwear or lingerie alongside ordinary family moments. Hundreds of thousands follow her, many of them women in their forties, fifties, and sixties.
At first, it seems simple. She posts pictures; people admire them. But something subtler is taking place. Followers are not merely enjoying the images. They are quietly borrowing something from them.
They borrow the sense of vitality she radiates. They borrow the feeling that it remains possible to look and feel attractive at an age when society often implies the opposite. They borrow the calm defiance against the notion that later decades should be lived more cautiously, with less boldness or exposure. None of this requires them to match the evident work she puts in: the regular exercise, the careful attention to diet and appearance, the confidence to press “share” on revealing photographs.
This borrowing is not limited to one account. It happens whenever we follow an early-rising fitness coach, a traveller who packs light and moves freely, or a sports team that battles for every point. We take a small portion of their visible effort and use it to buoy our own sense of identity, capability, or possibility.
The process feels harmless, even helpful. It offers a quick lift in mood, a fleeting sense of alignment with something admirable. Yet the lift is fragile. It fades as the feed refreshes, and the borrowed feeling seldom translates into lasting personal change.
This essay examines how that borrowing operates, why it appeals to us, and what it reveals about human nature in a digital age. We will trace its roots in established social-learning mechanisms, explore the core process of absorbing rewards from others’ costly effort, break down how it unfolds inside us layer by layer, consider the different benefits various groups seek, confront its temporary nature and hidden costs, and finally ask how we might live with it more deliberately.
Borrowed glory arrives quietly, often unnoticed. Recognising it is the first step toward deciding whether to keep it borrowed or to earn it ourselves.
The Social-Learning Roots: Why We Borrow in the First Place
The quiet borrowing described in the introduction—taking a share of someone else’s vitality or triumph simply by watching—feels instinctive. It happens effortlessly as we scroll or cheer from the sidelines. Yet this habit has deeper foundations in how humans learn from one another.
Much of our motivation comes from observing others succeed through hard work. When we see a person rewarded for effort, we feel a pull toward similar actions ourselves. This is vicarious reinforcement: the brain registers the payoff as if it were partly our own, boosting our belief that the path is worth trying. A child watches a sibling praised for tidying up and soon joins in. An adult sees a colleague promoted after long hours and feels spurred to stay late. The reward is not direct, but the encouragement lands all the same.
We also bask in reflected glory. Fans of a winning team say “we won” and wear the colours proudly the next day. The victory belongs to the players, yet the supporters feel uplifted, their sense of belonging strengthened without having kicked a ball. This association lifts mood and self-regard in everyday ways—sharing a hometown with a famous musician, or feeling connected to a successful friend.
These patterns tie into costly signalling. People display traits or achievements that require real investment—time, risk, energy—because such displays reliably show underlying strengths. A fit body signals discipline and health. Consistent kindness signals stable character. In the past, continued vigour in older women signalled reliability for supporting kin and the group, as their foraging or childcare helped grandchildren thrive and allowed daughters more frequent births. That practical contribution made sustained health valuable.
Today, platforms amplify these displays in new forms. A woman like Astrid maintains her fitness and shares confident images, the costs still real: the workouts, the vulnerability of posting. Her followers absorb the visible reward—proof that effort at her age yields energy and ease—without matching the input. The borrowing works because our social-learning machinery treats observed costly effort as evidence of reachable benefits.
In the future, feeds may overflow with such signals, making borrowing even easier and more routine. The habit serves us by highlighting viable paths, yet it can keep us watching rather than acting.
Understanding this mechanism clears the way to see exactly how we absorb rewards from others’ costs.
Vicarious Costly Signalling: The Mechanism That Makes Borrowing Work
The social-learning roots show why we are drawn to observe others’ effort and absorb some of their rewards. The core mechanism driving this borrowing is vicarious costly signalling.
Costly signalling happens when someone invests real resources—time, energy, risk—to display a quality that is hard to fake. The investment proves the trait is genuine. A peacock’s elaborate tail costs energy to grow and carry, reliably showing good health. In humans, maintaining fitness into later years requires consistent discipline, signalling underlying strength and commitment.
When we watch these displays without paying the costs ourselves, we engage in vicarious borrowing. We take a portion of the reward—pride, vitality, possibility—while the signaller bears the effort.
Consider the football supporter again. Players train daily, risk injury, and perform under scrutiny. Their visible costs signal dedication and skill. Fans watch, sing, and feel the triumph as partly theirs when the team wins. The glory is borrowed through association, lifting mood and identity without personal sweat.
Astrid’s account works similarly. She invests in exercise, chooses outfits, and shares revealing photos, facing potential judgment. These costs signal sustained vigour and confidence. Followers scroll, like, and absorb the payoff: a sense that energy and ease remain possible at sixty. The lift arrives quickly, at almost no personal expense.
This mechanism is efficient. Observing costly effort raises our belief in similar outcomes for ourselves. It feels inspiring, like proof that the path works. The brain treats the seen reward as partial evidence of our own potential.
In time, more lives will be curated this way—full of visible investments we can borrow from in passing. The ease encourages repeated returns, even if action remains rare.
To see how this borrowing unfolds inside us, step by step, a simple layered model helps clarify the process.
The Five-Layer Stack Applied: How Borrowing Operates in the Brain and Behaviour
The mechanism of vicarious costly signalling explains how we absorb rewards from others’ effort. To understand how it takes hold inside us, a simple five-layer model reveals the process step by step.
Layer one is raw physiology. The first encounter triggers an immediate body response. A confident beach photo from Astrid might slow the heart slightly and release a gentle warmth. A late football goal can spike adrenaline and quicken the pulse.
Layer two is the limbic kernel. It turns those body signals into a basic push or pull. Borrowing usually creates a steady approach feeling—safe, rewarding, and reliable enough to linger on the image or keep watching the match.
Layer three adds primal affects, the core emotions we share with other mammals. Astrid’s posts often spark a touch of care—self-nurture and quiet protection—mixed with play in her cheeky confidence. Football fandom lights up seeking, the chase for excitement, and play in the tribal joy of chanting together.
Layer four translates these into conscious feelings we notice directly. Identity shifts upward: “I’m the sort who values vitality” or “I’m part of a winning side.” Emotion follows—quiet pride for Astrid’s followers, exhilaration for fans. Perceived risk stays low: no personal setback if the model changes or the team loses. Effort feels high, but borrowed—their discipline or grind lifts us without our own exertion.
Layer five wraps it all in a cultural story that makes sense of the experience. Astrid offers the “evergreen rebel,” ageing boldly on her own terms. Football provides the “loyal warrior” in a heroic group. The story turns the borrowed lift into something explainable and shareable with others.
When the layers align, borrowing feels seamless and compelling. The body reacts, the limbic system draws us in, affects colour it, conscious dials turn, and the story ties it together. We return for another dose.
Different people seek different borrowed benefits, shaped by what they most lack or crave.
The Cohorts and Their Borrowed Benefits
The five-layer model shows how borrowing unfolds within us. Different groups seek out specific benefits, guided by what they most need or feel is missing.
Women in their forties, fifties, and sixties often follow accounts like Astrid’s. They borrow vitality and the quiet assurance to age boldly. The payoff is a renewed sense of possibility: that looking strong and feeling attractive can continue well into later life.
Young men in their twenties and thirties tend to follow relentless fitness influencers. They borrow discipline and a taste of physical dominance. The benefit is a feeling of latent power and competence, even if the next workout remains unplanned.
Sports fans of any age attach to teams or athletes who fight hard. They borrow glory and tribal connection. The reward is pride in shared victory and belonging to something larger, without the physical demands of competition.
Aspiring entrepreneurs track those who seem to live freely—travelling light, working from beaches, building wealth quietly. They borrow freedom and evidence that unconventional success works. The lift is a glimpse of independence before fully earning it.
Many people also follow thinkers, podcasters, or writers who display calm perspective and sharp insight. They borrow intellectual clarity and emotional steadiness. The benefit is a momentary sense of grounded wisdom amid daily noise, without the years of reading or reflection required.
In each case, the group gravitates toward models offering the reward they crave most. Similarity strengthens the borrow: a woman in her sixties connects more easily with another in the same decade than with a twenty-year-old. The process is quick and low-cost, which explains its quiet spread.
Yet this very ease hides a downside. The borrowed lift rarely lasts, and it seldom sparks real change.
The Dark Side and the Fragility
The ease with which different groups borrow specific benefits reveals a hidden limitation. The borrowed lift, though appealing, proves temporary and often fragile.
The feeling seldom lasts beyond the moment. A scroll past Astrid’s confident image delivers a quick sense of vitality, but it fades as the next post appears. A football win brings shared glory that evaporates with the final whistle or the following defeat. The inspiration arrives swiftly, yet it rarely builds into enduring habits.
Everyday patterns confirm this. Many people follow fitness accounts showing rigorous routines, feeling spurred in the instant. Gym searches or sign-ups sometimes spike after popular motivational posts. Yet attendance often drops soon after, with routines abandoned within weeks. The initial surge gives way to familiar inactivity, as the borrowed discipline does not prompt matching effort.
This gap can breed quiet unease. Comparing one’s unchanged days to the highlighted achievements of others widens a sense of shortfall. Over time, repeated borrowing without personal investment may foster frustration or a feeling of being stuck, as the temporary lifts highlight what remains unpaid in one’s own life.
Cultural trends accelerate the cycle. Admired ideals—bold ageing, extreme discipline, effortless freedom—spread rapidly online, becoming widespread, then familiar, then exhausting. When a story loses its novelty, the borrowed reward weakens, prompting a shift to fresh models with new promises.
In the coming years, feeds may brim with even more polished displays of costly effort. The lifts will arrive faster and more frequently, but the fade may quicken too, deepening reliance on passive watching.
Borrowing itself carries no inherent fault; it forms part of our natural response to observed success. The fragility emerges when it substitutes for direct action rather than bridging to it.
The habit is neither wholly helpful nor harmful. Recognising its limits opens the choice: remain content with borrowed glory, or begin building rewards of one’s own.
Conclusion – Living With Borrowed Glory
The fragility of borrowed lifts points to a simple truth. The habit itself is neither good nor bad; it is simply woven into how we respond to others’ visible effort.
Borrowing offers an easy way to feel better in the moment. A quick scroll through Astrid’s feed or a match day with friends provides a small, borrowed boost. In modest amounts, this can prove useful. A follower might start taking longer walks. A fan could join a casual game. The observed reward sometimes nudges real steps.
The greater potential lies in using borrowing as a bridge, not a permanent resting place. Notice what draws you most strongly—vitality from confident ageing, discipline from early risers, belonging from shared triumphs, freedom from light travellers, or clarity from thoughtful voices. Track it for a week: which feeds deliver the clearest lift? Then choose one small direct payment toward that reward. A short daily exercise, an early alarm once, a local team signup, a planned trip, a focused hour of reading.
In the years ahead, platforms will offer ever more lives rich with costly signals to borrow from. The choice stays the same: settle for the comfortable, fleeting lift, or cross over to build something enduring.
Borrowed glory feels like a quiet gift, yet it often arrives as a subtle theft from our own potential. Recognising the difference allows us to decide—keep it borrowed, or make it truly ours.
References
The ideas in this essay draw from established concepts in social learning, evolutionary psychology, and human behaviour, alongside everyday observations of digital life.
Astrid Zeegen-Holt’s Instagram account: @astridiwantyouinmylife The real-world example anchoring the discussion: a woman in her sixties from Devon whose confident posts in swimwear and lingerie, shared with family moments, allow followers to borrow a sense of continued vitality and ease.
Albert Bandura – Social Learning Theory (1977) The classic foundation for vicarious reinforcement and how observing others’ effort and rewards shapes our own expectations and motivation.
Robert B. Cialdini – Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (updated editions) Introduces “basking in reflected glory,” the tendency to borrow pride and status through association with successful others.
David M. Buss – Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind (7th edition, 2024) Provides insight into costly signalling across the lifespan, including how displays of health and capability carry value.
Geoffrey Miller – Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior (2009) Explores modern costly signalling and how visible investments in traits like fitness continue to function as displays.
Kristen Hawkes and colleagues – Papers on the Grandmother Hypothesis (e.g., “Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Longevity,” various from 1998 onward) The work showing how post-reproductive women’s contributions to kin historically favoured sustained vigour and longer lives.
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy – Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (2009) Examines cooperative breeding and the role of allomothers, linking extended female lifespans to shared child-rearing.
Margaret Mark & Carol S. Pearson – The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes (2001) The source for the twelve archetypes that shape the cultural stories we use to frame admired lives and borrowed feelings.
Research on social-media inspiration and behaviour change Multiple studies (e.g., reviews in Frontiers in Psychology and Preventive Medicine Reports) show that exposure to fitness content often creates short-term motivation spikes—such as increased intentions or gym searches—but these rarely translate into sustained exercise habits, highlighting the temporary nature of borrowed lifts.
These sources form the backbone of the ideas presented. They offer starting points for deeper exploration.