<p>This book explores the view that normative behaviour is part of a complex of social mechanisms, processes and narratives that are constantly shifting. From this perspective, norms are not a kind of self-contained social object or fact, but rather an interplay of many things that we label as norms when we 'take a snapshot' of them at a particular instant. Further, this book pursues the hypothesis that considering the dynamic aspects of these phenomena sheds new light on them.<br><br>The sort of issues that this perspective opens to exploration include:</p><ul><li>Of what is this complex we call a "social norm" composed of?</li><li>How do new social norms emerge and what kind of circumstances might facilitate such an appearance?</li><li>How context-specific are the norms and patterns of normative behaviour that arise?</li><li>How do the cognitive and the social aspects of norms interact over time?</li><li>How do expectations, beliefs and individual rationality interact with social norm complexes to effect behaviour?</li><li>How does our social embeddedness relate to social constraint upon behaviour?</li><li>How might the socio-cognitive complexes that we call norms be usefully researched?</li></ul>