Psychologists use the term character disorder to refer to the variety of symptoms that accompany the failure to develop a normal social conscience. Some may care little about social problems except how existing situations can be used to their personal advantage. The bulk of deviant behavior probably stems from social causes. For many sociologists, the personality and the social self have much in common. Labeling theories make a sharp distinction between primary deviance and secondary deviance .
Primary deviance refers to the occasional deviant behavior.
Secondary deviance may develop from this primary deviance, and occurs when the person's deviant behavior is discovered by others, and the person is labeled as deviant. Once publicly identified, deviants are treated differently by other people. What began as a simple deviant act sets in motion a series of forces that completely alters the individual's life organization. This process is of primary importance to labeling theorists in the creation of the organized social deviation that is a major factor in the emergence of social problems. Anomie Theory Anomie , a French term for normlessness first used by Emile Durkheim, is now closely associated with the work of Robert K. Merton.