ABSTRACT
We may not always be aware of it, but our lives are constantly affected by a multitude of social and cultural interrelations. Socially constructed norms, values and habits guide routine behaviour in everyday situations. We negotiate our way through a tangled web of community expectations while adapting to the norms or challenging them in order to fulfi l our individual aspirations. An important goal is to be in control , or at least to achieve a perception of being in control (Goffman, 1963; Langer, 1983), to know how to act in order to successfully satisfy one’s needs and desires, as far as is possible in the omnipresent interplay between the self and the community.
