1. Describe an occasion in which you were caught engaged in a primary deviant act and thus was labeled a deviant: My deviant act was stealing my Mother's car. At the age of 15 I saw an opportunity to take my Mother's car while she was sleeping ~ she worked night shift and slept a lot during the day. I very quietly got the keys and took off for the nearest McDonalds. A funny thing happened when I pulled back into our parking lot to park the car ~ the parking space where my Mother had parked her car was now being occupied by another car. I had to park three blocks away!!!

2. What were the effects of this label? How did it affect your self identity? The effects of this label was losing my Mother's trust. I never realized the consequences this action would have. Not only was I breaking the law by not having a drivers license I was also hurting my Mother. I felt very bad for doing what I did and it took a long time to gain back her trust. I learned that doing the right thing is much better than doing the wrong thing. The hurt lasted much longer than the 20 minute joy ride that I took.

B) How did it affect how you were treated by others? The only people that treated me any differently were my family members. They were not able to trust me and I felt like such a rebel. My friends of course thought it was cool what I did ~ which made me feel even worse.

C) Did this labeling increase, decrease or have no obvious effect on your deviant behavior? This label definitely decreased my deviant behavior. I learned that honesty and trust were very important and that these things can be taken away in an instant.

3. Explain how these effects are examples of secondary deviants. I'm not sure if I am answering this correctly...but I would have to say that the effects that I felt from this act made some people want to do a similar act just to see if they could get away with it. Getting away with such an act can make a person feel just as bad because they have to live with the dishonesty and guilt. To me honesty is the best policy :-)

Patty Tejeda