Amateur Social Scientist → Pillar 2: Understanding Influence → Article 1 of 5
This article is part of the Amateur Social Scientist series, an introduction to the observational approach used throughout the Cow Path Model of Change™ ecosystem.
In the Cow Path Model of Change™, the Amateur Social Scientist approach helps make inherited influences visible so readers can see how social influence may have shaped familiar pathways before trying to change them.
Social programming is the process of absorbing expectations, values, and assumptions from the surrounding social environment. Borrowed beliefs are ideas absorbed from others rather than consciously chosen.
When people begin observing their own behavior patterns, a natural question often follows.
Where did these patterns come from?
From early childhood onward, human beings are immersed in systems of expectations, values, and assumptions about how life works. Families, schools, communities, media, and culture all communicate messages about success, relationships, work, identity, and possibility.
Many of these ideas are useful.
Some, however, are simply inherited.
From a young age, people learn by observing others. They absorb language, values, and behavioral expectations from the communities around them.
This process is sometimes called social programming.
Children learn what is normal by watching the adults around them.
Over time, these repeated messages form a kind of internal map that helps guide decisions and expectations.
A borrowed belief is an assumption that was absorbed from others rather than consciously chosen.
For example, a person may grow up hearing certain messages about what is realistic, what is difficult, or what is expected in life.
These messages may become internalized, shaping how the individual interprets opportunities and challenges.
But when a person begins studying their own life through the lens of an Amateur Social Scientist, these beliefs sometimes become visible for the first time.
The observer begins to notice which ideas truly reflect their own values and which may simply have been inherited.
Families communicate ideas about responsibility, work, and relationships. Schools introduce beliefs about achievement and ability. Communities shape expectations about identity and belonging.
Each of these influences becomes part of the larger social environment in which a person grows and learns.
The goal is not to criticize these influences but to understand them.
When people begin examining social programming, they often start noticing familiar messages that have been repeated throughout their lives.
These messages can become so familiar that they feel like personal convictions.
But careful observation sometimes reveals that they originated elsewhere.
The Amateur Social Scientist approach encourages simple curiosity about these influences.
These questions open space for reflection.
This supports self-leadership because the observer begins to separate inherited messages from consciously chosen direction. Over time, noticing borrowed beliefs can also reveal how social influence shaped familiar assumptions about identity, possibility, and what feels acceptable or expected.
Within this model, beliefs play an important role in shaping behavior.
Over time, these beliefs may contribute to the formation of familiar behavioral pathways.
When people begin studying social programming and borrowed beliefs, they gain a clearer view of the ideas influencing their choices.
Recognizing social programming does not require rejecting the people or communities that shaped us.
The goal of observation is not blame.
It is understanding.
The next step is to look at where this programming comes from and who shapes it early on.
Next in Pillar 2: Early Programmers
Weekly observations on patterns, identity, and change
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© Terri Lee Cooper, MSc, RSW – Cow Path Model of Change™