Happy Hazing? How Fraternity Involvement Influences Hazing Intervention Behaviors in College Students

Past research on hazing relies on text-based stimuli and tasks. To improve our understanding of hazing intervention behaviors and how they are influenced by group-level and individual-level factors, the author introduces a more engaging image-based task.

Using a student sample from a large, Midwestern university, the author administers a novel image-based task via online survey to examine whether fraternity group membership affects willingness to intervene in encounters involving hazing and other abusive behaviors compared to neutral behaviors. The author also administers questionnaires measuring dimensions of trait empathy, perceptions of the social expectedness of hazing, and previous exposure to hazing prevention education.

Fraternity group members have lower levels of trait empathy compared to nonaffiliated men. Unexpectedly, though, fraternity men report being more likely to directly intervene in hazing events compared to nonaffiliated men. Also, participants who have witnessed hazing in the past are less likely to intervene across all intervention types. Finally, participants who have received anti-hazing education report more intent to directly monitor unfolding hazing events.

This study uses cross-sectional data. Future research should use longitudinal data to confirm the causal influence of fraternity membership on the outcomes. Additionally, while the image-based task improves upon previous text-based research, questions about ecological validity linger. Furthermore, due to the passage of anti-hazing legislation during data collection, social desirability bias may influence the results.

The author finds some evidence of the effectiveness of anti-hazing education and awareness in higher education settings.