This desire for the approval of others is probably one of the fundamental reasons why groups of human beings tend to create broad patterns of similar behavior.

For example, if you live in a particular part of the world, you will tend to absorb the culture (a broad pattern of behavior) prevalent in that area.

This means that you will tend to wear much the same kind of clothing, eat much the same kind of food, keep much the same kind of hours, and pattern your own behavior in general along the standards exhibited by most others in that particular locale.

Often, when people feel rebellious about one thing or another, they will seek to communicate their rebellion by deliberately violating some more or less accepted pattern or norm.

Such non-conformist behavior is often itself a model of true conformity.

An illustration of this occurred in the 1960's respecting the length of hair favored by men. Rebellion against the past made long hair the "in" thing.

Yet, those rebels who insisted on long hair were keenly interested in winning the approval of their fellow rebels, even as they defied the prevalent cultural norm of short hair.