A loose association of girls and boys, with public interactions within a crowd
Explanation:
As regards the development of romantic attraction in adolescents
, Australian researcher Dexter Dunphy outlined the four steps of male-female relationships in childhood and adolescence, from asexual to active. The first step involves groups of friends, exclusively one sex or the other; the third includes smaller mixed groups of the advanced members of the crowd; while the last step deals with the constitution of couples, with an intimately close relationship.
According to Dunphy (1963), the second step in the sequence of male–female relationships during childhood and adolescence is a loose association of girls and boys, with public interactions within a crowd. Dexter Dunphy’s classic study of Australian adolescent cliques suggests that cliques prepare adolescents for the hetero-social world. The first step are groups of friends, exclusively one sex or the other
.
