Note: This article mostly focuses on violent hazing. Not all forms of hazing are detrimental or involve humiliation. The effects of hazing are also very personal, what can appear as a subtle ritual for one person can be very intense for someone else.
Baffled and enraged, I woke up in the middle of the night to a choir of loud ambiguous songs that later turned out to be the incantation of initiation. I was living on the campus at that time, it was my first week, and I have not yet been properly introduced to the concept of a fraternity.
As you might probably know, or you are about to find out, fraternities and sororities are groups of people formed in college (but not exclusively) where members adhere to the group only if they pass and endure the process. This process is fun, games, and humiliation a.k.a. hazing. Why do they do it? Well, a group of scholars argues that inflicting emotional and physical pain upon a group of novatos would increase social cohesion. Is that true, or is it just an excuse for abuse?
You could find out more in the article. Read the next section and leave a comment below about your experience with hazing.
The Article Contains:
- Definition
- Types Of Hazing
- Underlying Mechanisms Of Group Adherence
- History Of Hazing
Definition:
Hazing is a practice/ritual that subjects the aspiring members of the group to a series of quests and tests which allow them to show themselves worthy of the group. It is almost a form of initiation that can be found in all cultures under different names: bizutage in French, ontgroening (een overgangsritueel of rite de passage) in Dutch, nollning in Swedish, and so forth, all signaling a passage, a baptism.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, hazing is an initiation process that contains harassment [9]. Hazing is any activity expected of somebody who joins a group of people (usually a fraternity, sorority, a sports team, army, etc that involves participating or joining to their humiliation, and their mental and physical degradation [1,14]. Activities can involve impossible quests, kidnapping, sleep deprivation, doing stunts, excessive drinking games, or wearing ridiculous clothing with the purpose of humiliation [1].
Types Of Hazing
There is a wide variation of activities included in hazing rituals that range from subtle to violent therefore, one can distinguish 3 types of hazing [14].
Subtle hazing is done by name-calling, privileges deprivation, assigning new members to certain humiliating activities, or simply provoking fear in them.
Harassment hazing transcends into an area of verbal abuse, uncomfortable situations such as embarrassing clothes wearing. The new members can be asked to act as servants for the veteran members of that group by performing services for them like washing their shoes or carrying their books.
Violent hazing is the third type and is very problematic because it involves physical and emotional harm such as forced drinking and substance intake, physical assault (burning, beating), and sexual violation.
These activities can cause trauma and in the worst-case scenario the death of the person. In 2016, the dutch news announced the hospitalization of a few members of the Amsterdam Student Corps who went through the process of hazing [4]. Moreover, a few years earlier at Vindicat (a student association from Groningen), things got out of hand, when, as part of the hazing process, a student was asked to drink one liter of jenever (a predecessor to gin) which resulted in his death. While guys are imposing drinking games, the girls who dare to be promiscuous are called “sluts” and are put, without their consent, on a list that includes their photography, their personal details accompanied by their rating in bed. These lists are circulating in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Underlying Mechanisms Of Group Adherence
But if the hazing rituals have such detrimental effects why are people doing it?
First of all, it is theorized that hazing creates group solidarity and cohesion [2]. (efficiency, effectiveness, or social harmony) by using cognitive dissonance as a mediator. Due to cognitive dissonance, the members of the group might justify their efforts, actions, and hardship by increasing their liking for the group they desire to adhere to [5].
Second of all, Keating et. al. (2005) [8] argues that hazing creates dependence on the group in the same way victims can increase their linking of their abusers due to the Stockholm effect.
In addition, hazing is done in vertically organized groups to display the veteran member’s power over the newcomers [7] so it would not exist in the future, a violent revolt [15].
Third of all, in times of uncertainty and threat people have the tendency to merge into a group to benefit from the protection. Also due to our evolved coalitional psychology, humans have the tendency to join together and adopt beliefs such as “us versus them” type [6]. According to social identity theory, people have a group identity besides an individual identity. When adhering to a group they start to see themselves as members of the same social category, they become biased to favor the in-group members and they adopt the prototypical beliefs and behaviors of the group [10].
Tiger, L. (1984) argues that the process of hazing is “analogous to mate selection in the reproductive sphere” [11] and is done so they would eliminate weak and uncommitted members [13].
However, despite the general belief that hazing produces team cohesion, Van Raalte et.al.
(2007)[12] posits that social cohesion and the building blocks of a group are created by team-building behaviors whereas hazing practices are jeopardizing them.
History of Hazing
Hazing rituals are not events that transpired in 21 century. These practices date from ancient Greece and Rome where young boys were educated and mentored by using hazing rituals. The practice included sexual favors and even slavery [3].
In the middle ages around 1000-1400, hazing was already introduced amongst college students as part of their entrance into higher education. They have been exposed to physical pain such as scraping the skin off their ears or being asked to drink urine. It was a common belief amongst schools that beating and humiliation would cause obedience in school settings. This belief system was adopted by students but also by school administrators. In the 1600s, Oxford University students who came to Harvard University introduced hazing in order to make their peers obey. These practices were adopted by Harvard fraternities in 1780 and remain within the University until today. The hazing ritual applied mostly to 1-year students and in some schools, it was used as part of the graduation process under the name of pennalism[3]. . This practice has become increasingly problematic and due to injuries that people suffered, it was abolished in the 1700s just so it would be revived in 19 century. The hazing practices have surpassed the academic world and now hazing is part of rituals found in the military, sororities, fraternities, sports teams. marching bands, and so forth. The deaths among these practices have gradually increased with a record of 95 deaths during the 1990s[3].
To conclude, hazing practices are not just academic practices but are culturally and institutionally embedded. These dangerous rituals of initiation have to be recognized as abuse and should be abolished. Therefore, next time you adhere to a group, take into account the costs and the benefits of membership, and try to gain a better understanding of your behaviors and goals as an individual before adopting the beliefs of the group for the sake of social cohesion. However, if you decide to adhere to a group that happens to engage in hazing rituals (if taken too far) be the first to recognize the abuse and be the first to report it. Members’ life is far more important than the social construct of a group.
Additional resources:
Fraternity Row (movie)
Goat (movie)
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/hazing - list of articles by The New York Times
References
1.Allan, E. J., & Madden, M. (2012). The nature and extent of college student hazing.
2.Aronson, E. and Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. The
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 59, 177-181.
3.as Habit, H. (2018). History and Definition of Hazing. Critical Perspectives on Hazing in
Colleges and Universities: A Guide to Disrupting Hazing Culture.
4.Dutch fraternities criticised after start of new school year. (2021). Retrieved 10 November
5.Festinger, L. (1962). Cognitive dissonance. Scientific American, 207(4), 93-106..
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explanation. Oxford University Press.
7.Honeycutt, C. (2005). Hazing as a process of boundary maintenance in an online community.
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8.Keating, C. F., Pomerantz, J., Pommer, S. D., Ritt, S. J., Miller, L. M., & McCormick, J.
(2005). Going to college and unpacking hazing: a functional approach to decrypting initiation practices among undergraduates. Group dynamics: theory, research, and practice, 9(2), 104.
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11.Tiger, L. (1984). Men in groups 2nd ed. New York: Marion Boyars PublishersTiger2Men in
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12.Van Raalte, J. L., Cornelius, A. E., Linder, D. E., & Brewer, B. W. (2007). The relationship
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149-153.
14.What is Hazing? | Student Affairs. (2021). Retrieved 10 November 2021, from
https://studentaffairs.lehigh.edu/content/what-hazing
15.Whiting, J. W., Kluckhohn, R., & Anthony, A. (1958). The function of male initiation
ceremonies at puberty. Readings in social psychology, 359-370.