Gossip, making up 60-70% of conversations, is argued to be an important part of defining and in regulating the social world.

ingroups and outgroups

Explanation: An outgroup is any group that you don't belong or associate yourself with, while an ingroup is a group that you associate yourself with and both form the basis for social hierarchies. Groups play an important role in our perception of those that are “like us” and those that we feel are “different from us”. The group in which we associated strongly with are in groups while out group are group in which we have low social relation with.

whitch constitution would be inadequate as a basis for government today?

the answer would be a) it only allowed catholics to be in government.

the earth’s crust is broken into separate pieces called tectonic plates (fig. 7.14). recall that the crust is the solid, rocky, outer shell of the planet. it is composed of two distinctly different types of material: the less-dense continental crust and the more-dense oceanic crust. both types of crust rest atop solid, upper mantle material. the upper mantle, in turn, floats on a denser layer of lower mantle that is much like thick molten tar.

each tectonic plate is free-floating and can move independently. earthquakes and volcanoes are the direct result of the movement of tectonic plates at fault lines. the term fault is used to describe the boundary between tectonic plates. most of the earthquakes and volcanoes around the pacific ocean basin—a pattern known as the “ring of fire”—are due to the movement of tectonic plates in this region. other observable results of short-term plate movement include the gradual widening of the great rift lakes in eastern africa and the rising of the himalayan mountain range. the motion of plates can be described in four general patterns:

collision: when two continental plates are shoved together

subduction: when one plate plunges beneath another (fig. 7.15)

spreading: when two plates are pushed apart (fig. 7.15)

transform faulting: when two plates slide past each other (fig. 7.15)