Hazing
Hazing, initiation, beasting, bastardisation, ragging or deposition refers to any activity expected of someone in joining or participating in a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers them regardless of a person's willingness to participate.
Hazing is seen in many different types of social groups, including gangs, sports teams, schools, cliques, universities, fire departments, law enforcement, military units, prisons, fraternities and sororities, and even workplaces in some cases. The initiation rites can range from relatively benign pranks to protracted patterns of behavior that rise to the level of abuse or criminal misconduct.
Hazing is often prohibited by law or institutions such as colleges and universities because it may include either physical or psychological abuse, such as humiliation, nudity, or sexual abuse. Hazing activities have sometimes caused injuries or deaths.
While one explanation for hazing is that it increases group cohesion or solidarity, laboratory and observational evidence on its impacts on solidarity are inconclusive. Other explanations include displaying dominance, eliminating less committed members, and protecting groups that provide large automatic benefits for membership from exploitation by new members.
Terms
In some languages, terms with a religious theme or etymology are preferred, such as baptism or purgatory or variations on a theme of naïveté and the rite of passage such as a derivation from a term for freshman, for example w:fr:bizutage in European French, ontgroening in Dutch and Afrikaans, novatada in Spanish, from novato, meaning newcomer or rookie or a combination of both, such as in the Finnish mopokaste. In Latvian, the word iesvētības, which means 'in-blessings', is used, also standing for religious rites of passage, especially confirmation. In Swedish, the term used is nollning, literally 'zeroing', as the first-year hazees still are 'zeroes' before attending their first year. In Portugal, the term praxe, which means 'practice' or 'habit', is used for initiation. At education establishments in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, this practice involves existing students baiting new students and is called ragging.Hazings are sometimes concentrated in a single session, which may be called a hell night, prolonged to a hell week, or over a long period, resembling fagging. In the Italian military, the term used was nonnismo, from nonno, a jargon term used for the soldiers who had already served for most of their draft period. A similar equivalent term exists in the Russian military, where a hazing phenomenon known as dedovshchina exists, meaning roughly 'grandfather' or the slang term 'gramps'.
Methods
One way of initiating a new member into a street gang is for multiple other members of the gang to assault the new member with a beating.Hazing activities can involve ridicule and humiliation within the group or in public, while other hazing incidents are akin to pranks. A snipe hunt is such a prank when a newcomer or credulous person is given an impossible task. Examples of snipe hunts include being sent to find a tin of Tartan paint or a "dough repair kit" in a bakery. While in the early 1900s, rookies in the Canadian military were ordered to obtain a "brass magnet" when brass is not magnetic.
Spanking is done mainly in the form of paddling among fraternities, sororities, and similar clubs. This practice is also used in the military.
The hazee may be humiliated by being hosed or by sprinklers or buckets, covered with dirt or with food, or even urinated upon. Olive or baby oil may be used to "show off" the bare skin, for wrestling, or just for slipperiness. Cleaning may be limited to a dive into the water, hosing down, or even paddling the worst off. They may have to do tedious cleaning, including swabbing the decks or cleaning the toilets with a toothbrush. In fraternities, pledges often must clean up a mess intentionally made by brothers, including fecal matter, urine, and dead animals.
Servitude such as waiting on others or other forms of housework may be involved, often with obedience tests. Sometimes, the hazee may be made to eat raw eggs, peppers, hot sauce, or drink too much alcohol. Some hazings include eating or drinking things such as bugs or rotting food.
File:Catlin Okipa.jpg|thumb|The Okipa ceremony of the Mandan people as witnessed by George Catlin,
The hazee may have to wear an imposed piece of clothing, outfit, item, or something else worn by the victim in a way that would bring negative attention to the wearer. Examples include a uniform, a leash or collar, infantile and other humiliating dress and attire.
Markings may also be made on clothing or bare skin. They are painted, written, tattooed, or shaved on, sometimes collectively forming a message or may receive tarring and feathering or branding.
Submission to senior members of the group is common. Abject "etiquette" required of pledges or subordinates may include prostration, kneeling, literal groveling, and kissing body parts.
Other physical feats may be required, such as calisthenics and other physical tests, such as mud wrestling, forming a human pyramid, or climbing a greased pole. Exposure to the elements may be required, such as swimming or diving in cold water or snow. A pledge auction is a variation on the slave auction, where people bid on the paraded pledges. Orientation tests may be held, such as abandoning pledges without transport. Dares include jumping from some height, stealing items, and obedience.
Blood pinning among military aviators to celebrate becoming new pilots is done by piercing their chests with the sharp pins of aviator wings. On a pilot's first solo flight, they are often drenched with water and have the back of their shirt cut off to celebrate the achievement. Cutting off the back of the shirt originates from the days of tandem trainers, where the instructor sat behind the students and tugged on the back of their shirts to get their attention; cutting off the back of the shirt symbolizes that the instructor does not need to do that anymore. On their first crossing the equator in military and commercial navigation, each "pollywog" is subjected to a series of tests, usually including running or crawling a gauntlet of abuse and various scenes supposedly situated at King Neptune's court.
Hazing also occurs for apprentices in some trades, often involving beatings, shaving the heads, physical and sexual assault, or smearing the genitals with grease or wax.
Psychology, sociology, purpose and effects
Solidarity and group cohesion
One theory proposed to explain hazing behaviors is that it increases solidarity among a group's inductees, between the inductees and existing members, or between new members and the group.Laboratory studies
Attempts at replicating hazing in laboratory studies have yielded inconclusive results concerning group solidarity. A 1959 study by Aronson and Mills found that students made to read embarrassing material to join a discussion group reported liking the group more. On the other hand, a 1991 experiment by Hautaluoma et al. found that severe initiations could sometimes lead to lower liking for a group. Laboratory-based recreations of hazing may be limited in informativeness because they are only able to impose brief unpleasant experiences whose severity is limited by ethical restrictions on laboratory research. Real-world hazing may last months, may be far more severe, and may involve a confluence of different feelings, in contrast to the relatively simple distress induced in laboratory experiments. Researcher Aldo Cimino also points out that laboratory groups are "ephemeral", whereas real-world organizations that engage in hazing are "serious and enduring coalitions".Naturalistic surveys and studies
Surveys and studies examining real-world hazing have also yielded inconclusive results about its impacts on group solidarity.A 2022 study of new members of an American social fraternity that engaged in hazing found that hazing was "not substantially related to feelings of solidarity".
A 2016 survey of members of sororities and fraternities in the Netherlands found that mentally severe, but not physically severe, initiation rituals were linked to lower affiliation with fellow inductees and that the humiliation experienced by inductees explained this relationship.
A 2007 survey of student-athletes conducted by Van Raalte et al. found that hazing was associated with lower task cohesion and had no apparent relation to social cohesion; by contrast, appropriate team building activities had a positive impact on social cohesion but had little impact on task cohesion. The study, which included activities like "tattooing" and "engaging in or simulating sex acts" as "acceptable team building" activities because respondents categorized them as appropriate, has been criticized for using an improper definition for hazing.
Views and theories
Citing the 1959 study by Aronson and Mills, Psychologist Robert Cialdini uses the framework of consistency and commitment to explain the phenomenon of hazing and the vigor and zeal to which practitioners of hazing persist in and defend these activities even when they are made illegal. The 1959 study shaped the development of cognitive dissonance theory by Leon Festinger.Many people view hazing as an effective way to teach respect and develop discipline and loyalty within the group and believe that hazing is a necessary component of initiation rites. Hazing can be used as a way to engender conformity within a social group, something that can be seen in many sociological studies. Moreover, initiation rituals when managed effectively can serve to build team cohesion and improve team performance, while negative and detrimental forms of hazing alienate and disparage individuals.
Dissonance can produce feelings of group attraction or social identity among initiates after the hazing experience because they want to justify the effort used. Rewards during initiations or hazing rituals matter in that initiates who feel more rewarded express a stronger group identity. As well as increasing group attraction, hazing can produce conformity among new members. Hazing could also increase feelings of affiliation because of the stressful nature of the hazing experience. Also, hazing has a hard time of being extinguished by those who saw it to be potentially dangerous like administration in education or law enforcement.
A 2014 paper by Harvey Whitehouse discusses theories that hazing can cause social cohesion though group identification and identity fusion. A 2017 study published in Scientific Reports found that groups that share painful or strong negative experiences can cause visceral bonding and pro-group behavior.