“I thought I was better than him, and I was, until I had that thought.” – Anonymous

I am pointing the finger mostly at college fraternities, but the problem of hazing exists at some level in most of our institutions that bring adolescents or young adults together. In colleges, high schools, and the military, etc., hazing is often described as an “epidemic,” but it’s probably more accurate to call it “endemic” because it occurs in virtually all organized groups for youth.

According to Stophazing.org, hazing “refers to any activity expected of someone joining a group (or to maintain full status in a group) that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of the person's willingness to participate.” In one study (Smokowski, P., & Evans -2019) of student-athletes, 65% reported engagement in at least one “questionable” initiation experience. Another study of 404 high school students (Pečjak, S, Pirc, T. - 2019) indicated 79% of students were involved in “unofficial” hazing. Incidents of college fraternity and sorority members experiencing some form of hazing were reported at 73% in a report compiled from a 2008 national study.

Many campaigns have been waged to eliminate or reduce hazing; most of them after an incident of someone getting seriously harmed or killed. This is understandable because suffering these losses focuses our , as it should. Nonetheless, it’s unclear how effective these efforts to prevent hazing have been. Then there is the backlash effect from the proponents of hazing as a vital tradition, either defending it or going further underground.

It seems that trying to prevent hazing by highlighting the dangers and the possibly tragic consequences is like a red herring chasing its own tail. Not only are we sidetracked; we’re endlessly so. If we define hazing as bad only because people get hurt, then driving a car is bad, and even walking down the stairs is questionable. The real difference is that hazing is inherently negative whether there are obvious victims or not. As Preventionist Jean Kilborne said, “No epidemic is ever brought under control by treating only its casualties.”

By the definition above, even actions that are not physically dangerous could be considered hazing. A football team requires freshmen to do laundry for upperclassman. A sorority officer dumps food on a pledge’s head if they get an orientation question wrong. These experiences may not be life-altering, but they are aimed at altering the victim’s thinking.

The more insidious harm done by this kind of behavior affects the capacity of young people to develop healthy relationships and maintain individuality. These patterns of for the sake of bonding vs. bonding around genuine experiences, worm their way into our culture. Blind loyalty cements these adolescent bonds and the bad habits carry forward throughout life and slither their way into our major societal institutions.

Loyalty and obedience are important values but only in context. For example, we send soldiers to boot-camp and put uniforms on them and give them buzzcuts to suppress their individuality. The underlying message is, “You must follow orders.” That’s probably not a bad idea in some combat situations, but not as applicable in situations that require more flexible thinking.

Absent the appropriate context, we encourage a sort of paralyzing and hypnotizing . Case in point: Unnecessary wars (wars of choice) can easily be waged by suppressing dissent among those who are already well-indoctrinated in the practice of going along to get along. A more common example is the belief that “my sports team is better than your sports team.” Fans will get in physical fights over these loyalties even though they are formed around meaningless games and rituals.

This indoctrination problem infects our corporations, and it dummies down our government in the form of . And, of course, no good political scandal is complete without the cover-up. In fact, we often hear that the “cover-up is worse than the .” This secret-keeping pattern is so prevalent that it’s no surprise we had to pass whistle-blower laws to protect those who report wrongdoing. It’s also not surprising that fraternities boast about their former members in politics and corporate , showing data like:

Every U.S. President and Vice President, except two in each office, born since the first social fraternity was founded in 1825 have been members of a fraternity.

76% of all Congressmen and Senators belong to a fraternity. 40 of 47 U.S. Supreme Court Justices since 1910 were fraternity men. 71% of those listed in “Who’s Who in America” belong to a fraternity.

Of the nation’s 50 largest corporations, 43 are headed by fraternity men.

Men and women with these affiliations suffer from the same brain disorder, the “we are better cognitive distortion syndrome.” Although the diagnosis is fictitious, the symptoms are not. Fortunately, some people eventually recover from it and outgrow the tribal mentality. Our current level of polarization in politics suggests that many more people need to recover and soon!

These kinds of social groupings also promote mental laziness because they value consensus over more elegant solutions to problems. Dualistic and simplistic thinking never solve complex problems, they just make concrete minds more comfortable. They ask, “Is the glass half empty or half full?” when, in fact, it’s both. Unfortunately, because of this culturally-induced brain drain, the water in our leadership glass is a bit on the shallow side.

Those who understand youth development get it. One of the major issues at this stage of life is learning to strike a balance between connectedness and autonomy. We need to belong but we also need to remain individuals. Knowing when to submit one's will to the group or act independently is a mark of maturity.

I recall “rushing” for a fraternity when I began college and was an eager participant until they brought out the paddle. I told the group that as much as I wanted to join, I was not willing to be subjected to pain and (I actually said something less civil) and we parted ways that night. Fortunately, I had this issue figured out when I was eighteen years old. In retrospect, over the years, my independent-mindedness probably hurt my , but in the long run, it kept my dignity intact, and I managed to thrive anyway.

By now, you might have gotten the impression that I am opposed to fraternal organizations or sports generally. This is not necessarily the case. If groups can organize around a beneficial purpose or recreation, and have mechanisms to promote and monitor character development, I am very much in favor of them. These organizations promote , duty, and self-sacrifice. Some seem to facilitate character development. We may also benefit from the positive loyalty they teach, but it should never be at the expense of individual integrity.

Some ways to protect students from the negative influences of fraternities and sororities, especially during their first year include:

1) Postpone pledging until students have been involved in staff-led social groups for a reasonable period of time.

2) Establish a first semester GPA requirement before pledging is allowed.

3) Require workshops on and social skills development as a prerequisite for pledging.

4) Require officers to report incidents of underage drinking by members, on or off-campus.

5) Until the culture changes, establish procedures to handle minor hazing incidents with an instructive rather than punitive response.

Above all, to prevent hazing and the conditions that support it, we need extensive developmental for all students. Further, this type of educational content should be deeply embedded in the freshman orientation and academic curricula, and every student organization. We need to warn them about the dangers of groupthink and empower them to recognize it and confront it.

The rest of us would benefit too. We can instill and reinforce values that will translate into developing better people, better leaders, better citizens, and better institutions. This approach is likely to be effective since it capitalizes on youth’s most promising assets - their recently acquired abilities to think logically, abstractly, and critically. They have the cognitive hardware, but they need the instruction manual. Hazing and tribalism will be less likely when they are inspired to solve complex problems, not create them.