Available online 20 September 2023

Author links open overlay panel, , Abstract

Social scientists have often claimed or implied that hazing selects out uncommitted newcomers in voluntary associations. Because groups that engage in hazing are generally secretive about their practices, there has never been a real-world, in situ test of this claim. Using an American social fraternity, we report the first real-world, longitudinal test of hazing's relationship with selective newcomer attrition. Our data are derived from six sets of fraternity inductees who experienced the fraternity's hazing induction process (N = 126). Our analyses suggest that experienced hazing severity is a predictor of attrition and that hazing severity differentially predicts the attrition of low-commitment newcomers. However, real-world fraternity inductions (and measurements thereof) are complex in ways that add important caveats to our findings. Our discussion focuses on the best means by which to confirm or disconfirm our results through future replications.

Section snippetsDefining hazing

In the social sciences, there are a variety of hazing definitions that largely overlap with one another. All common definitions of hazing are at least partially subjective and assume reasonable observers (e.g., Allan & Madden, 2012; Hoover, 1999). However, definitions vary in their specificity and tendency toward false positives. As such, we employed the less-commonly used “strict” definition of hazing (Cimino, 2017, Cimino, 2007) because we consider it to be more precise about the set of

The commitment macro theory and common properties of social fraternities

The commitment macro theory is the idea that hazing allows for the selection of committed group members. The means by which this selection takes place is not always made explicit by researchers, hence our use of the passive term “allows”. We interpret the commitment macro theory as logically requiring at least the following two propositions: 1. There are varying representations of intrinsic group valuation in the minds of newcomers (i.e., “commitment”). 2. Hazing ordeals can differentially

Why hazing might exclude low-commitment newcomers

Prior to reviewing the relevant literature, it is worth briefly describing why hazing might exclude low-commitment newcomers from voluntary associations:

The on-the-ground reality of fraternity inductions

The three basic categories noted above are meant to provide a high-level summary of how commitment-related, hazing-based attrition might happen. However, from an anthropological perspective, it is important to acknowledge the on-the-ground character of fraternity hazing, and the kinds of social processes that may be occurring. Consider the following examples:

What we know about hazing and commitment

We consider it reasonably well-established that, across human ancestral environments, incumbent members of enduring coalitions would have had strong adaptive reasons to attend to cues of commitment in prospective group members (e.g., Cimino, 2011; Cimino et al., 2019; Cimino & Delton, 2010; Delton & Cimino, 2010; Sosis et al., 2007). Further, while incumbent members' conscious reasoning about such cues is not necessary for the commitment macro theory to be true, it nonetheless appears to be the

Methods

The following description is adapted from Cimino and Thomas (2022):

All participants were pledges to the pseudonymous fraternity chapter “Beta”, located at an anonymous university in the United States. In order to conduct the study, the principal investigator established a rapport with an active member of Beta. (Note that the PI was neither an active nor alumnus of Beta.) Through the PI's relationship with this active member and subsequent conversations with other Beta actives, the chapter

Results

Table 2 presents descriptive statistics, internal consistency estimates, and bivariate correlations for the four predictor measures used in this study. Induction attrition for each of the six pledge classes across all time points is shown in Table 1. (Note that demographic information is not presented because it was not collected from participants.) We discuss the results relevant to the commitment macro theory below.

General discussion

Across the measured study period, nearly half of Beta's pledges exited the induction process. While our analyses cannot be used to draw firm causal inferences, they are consistent with the possibility that hazing was one cause of such attrition and that hazing differentially caused the attrition of low-commitment pledges (Fig. 1). This article thus constitutes the first real-world, longitudinal evidence for the commitment macro theory of hazing. As with the previous study on Beta (Cimino &

The challenges of studying hazing

In this article, we have reported a hypothesis test using a dataset that allows but is not purpose-built for said test. This restricts testing to only some versions of the target theory and also means that the evaluated variables are limited. In well-developed areas of the social sciences with many hundreds if not thousands of rigorous studies (e.g., stereotyping psychology), the utility of reporting findings with a less-ideal dataset could be rightfully questioned. However, there are key

Funding

This research was partially funded by a Central Fellowship provided by the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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