Reducing the relative significance of the immediate situation diminishes the burden of obtaining and evaluating information in individual cases and removes the need for a complete reorientation in shifting from one case to another. At the same time, in this manner it absorbs uncertainty. It becomes possible to form complementary expectations, and conduct on the basis of expectations, but at the risk of an expectation-oriented, but not quite situation-adequate behaviour which does not exploit the possibilities that the concrete situation may offer (for instance not exploiting a momentary weakness in the power-holder) and misses opportunities for learning.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 637