A. In laughing along, the target of the joke shows that he’s a good sport, thereby completing the ritual.

B. Ridicule can actually reinforce a group when the target is confident of their in-group status.

C. By laughing together at each other and at themselves, the rest of the group show their membership.

D. Laughing at someone is among the strongest markers of social exclusion in human connection.

A. In its “I Want to Be Recycled” campaign, Keep America Beautiful urges consumers to reduce their plastic footprint by imagining the reincarnation of shampoo bottles and boxes post recycling.

B. Keep America Beautiful has, for decades, publicly opposed or marketed against legislation that would increase producer responsibility for plastic waste management.

C. In fact, its greatest success has been to shift the onus of environmental responsibility onto the public while simultaneously becoming a trusted name in the environmental movement.

D. A corporate greenwashing front, it has built public support for a legal framework that punishes individual litterers, while imposing almost no responsibility on plastic manufacturers.

A. Researchers found that the stone tools of H. erectus were made from stones lying around at the botton of a hill, for instance, rather than from the better-quality stones found uphill.

B. In contrast, H. sapiens and Neanderthals, who came later, put in the effort to find good stone for the tools they made and even transported these stones over long distances.

C. Excavations from the Arabian Peninsula indicate that the species Homo erectus failed to put in enough effort to create good quality stone tools which were crucial to their survival.

D. This lackadaisical attitude, coupled with the inability to adapt to a changing environment, was what, according to these researchers, contributed to the population's demise.

A. The political nature of the target modifies the standard economic constraints, encouraging local governments to generate whatever additional economic activity is required so that, along with the economic activity of the private and real-estate sectors, the target is reached.

B. The fact is that Chinese GDP will be unaffected by a trade war with the U.S., no matter how severe, because the government will do whatever it takes to meet its growth targets. To see the conflict’s true toll, one should look at rising Chinese debt instead.

C. Thus, while GDP numbers may tell us something about the government’s priorities, they’re a poor measure of the underlying performance of the economy, for, as long as China has debt capacity, and the government is willing to use it, China can achieve any GDP growth target it wants.

D. In China, the government sets the GDP growth rate early in the year at a level thought adequate to accommodate its social and political objectives, among which is to keep unemployment low.

A. Expertise is not an isolated event: rather, it changes when the social context changes.

B. Even exceptional players who find themselves in a different team with many other exceptional players, may find themselves playing below par.

C. In team sports, this includes supporting staff such as physical therapists and managers.

D. A network of high performing athletes and support staff provides a rich social platform for professional excellence.