A survey of 411 American adults reveals a troubling gap between what people say they believe about hazing and what some of them actually tolerate—and researchers at the University of Mississippi have uncovered something unexpected lurking beneath that gap: those more likely to excuse hazing also tend to minimize sexual violence.
The distinction matters enormously for prevention efforts. Most American adults do recognize hazing as dangerous and capable of causing serious physical and emotional harm. Yet this broad disapproval coexists with a persistent problem. More than 125 U.S. students have died from hazing-related incidents since 2000, according to HazingInfo's comprehensive database. Every year, more than half of all college students and 1.5 million high school students experience hazing, the Hazing Prevention Network estimates. Forty-four states, including Mississippi, have criminalized hazing, often classifying it as a felony. And still the practice continues across athletics teams, Greek life, club sports, and performing arts organizations nationwide.
Carrie Smith, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Mississippi, and Caitlin Shaw, an assistant professor at Austin Peay State University, designed their study to include a voice often absent from these conversations: adults. "Adults are the administrators on campuses, the teachers and superintendents. They're sitting on juries that judge hazing cases," Smith explained. "If we want to look at legislation, we'll need people to lobby and adults in Congress to pay attention."
The researchers found that tolerance for hazing split along predictable lines—people who had been hazed themselves, parents, those with certain political identities, and men were more likely to downplay its seriousness. The reasoning, Smith noted, reflects a dangerous logical fallacy: "When people experience hazing and it's not that bad, they're more likely to consider hazing as a whole less serious. Lots of people get hazed, and not everybody dies, and so it's possible that they're understandably using their own experience to say, 'It isn't that serious, because it wasn't that serious for me.' The issue is, people do die, and it can be very serious."
Parents receiving filtered accounts from their own children—who may downplay their experiences—proved particularly susceptible to this minimization. But the study uncovered a more disturbing correlation. Those who tolerate hazing are also significantly more likely to minimize sexual assault, endorse rape myths, and blame survivors based on clothing choices or alcohol consumption. Shaw called this connection striking. "Sexual violence research is very prolific, but hazing is a type of violence where research seems to be lacking. This study shows that there is a connection, a correlation between these types of violent attitudes."
The researchers argue that reframing hazing as a public health issue rather than a conduct problem could unlock more effective prevention. A public health lens shifts focus from punishing individuals after misconduct occurs to identifying high-risk groups and implementing targeted interventions before harm happens. As Shaw noted, this approach "opens the opportunity to look at interventions at the group level" rather than stopping isolated incidents after the fact.
For change to stick, adults must first understand what's at stake—and recognize that minimizing hazing and minimizing sexual violence are not separate problems, but symptoms of the same tolerance for group harm.