High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Adolescent cliques are cliques that develop amongst adolescents. In the social sciences, the word "clique" is used to describe a group of 2 to 12 (averaging 5 or 6) "persons who interact with each other more regularly and intensely than others in the same setting". Cliques are distinguished from "crowds" in that their members interact with one another (e.g., hang out together, go shopping, play basketball). Crowds, on the other hand, are defined reputationally. Although the word `clique` or `cliquey` is often used in day-to-day conversation to describe relational aggression or snarky, gossipy behavior of groups of socially dominant teenage girls this is not scientifically accurate. Interacting with cliques is part of normative social development regardless of gender, ethnicity, or popularity. Although cliques are most commonly studied during adolescence and middle childhood, they exist in all age groups.