Question

What is the difference between primary and secondary deviance? Answer this by defining both concepts. Which one is caused by labeling and how is it caused by labeling?

Answer 1

Primary Deviance	Secondary deviance
Deviant behavior that does not have long-term consequences and does not result in the person committing the act being labeled as a deviant.	It is a deviant behavior that results from being labeled as deviant by society.
Primary deviance usually occurs within a person's own peer group that engages in the same behavior. For instance, a teenager who smokes cigarettes with other teens doesn't perceive any bad behavior because everyone else in the peer group is smoking.	Secondary deviance then occurs when this same teenager moves to a different school and smokes in front of a peer group that shuns smoking. The teen is labeled an outcast and begins to smoke more because people told him or her that smoking was not acceptable.

Labeling theory is the theory of how the self-identity and behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them.