Thinking Culture

Alice in Wonderland is even useful for 'Sport Research' haha

In the novel Alice in Wonderland (Carroll, 1990) Alice is frustrated and angry when she discovers that the croquet game lacks fair play and rules; that the croquet balls are hedgehogs; that the croquet loops run away and that the playing field is bumpy and full of holes. The frustration and anger arises because Alice
has a definite, but mainly implicit, conception of how croquet should be played and what the necessary qualities of the playing field should be. Both the sport and the facilities are different from what she is used to. In other words, the game and the facility are not as she expects and she feels bad about it. She is tempted to quit the game and leave the playing field immediately. The queen and her court, however,
experience this differently. To them this is how croquet should be played. They do not question the rules, the quality of the field or the equipment. All aspects of the game are in accord with their expectations.
I think we all agree that expectations are an important mechanism for the regulation of social behaviour. We may metaphorically say that expectations almost force us to comply with them, just as gravity makes the apple fall from the tree or the electromagnetic force of a magnet makes the iron filings line up from
the magnet’s north pole to the south pole. We may term this mechanism the force of expectations.