ABSTRACT
Hazing involves veteran members of the team encouraging or coercing new members to engage in embarrassing, degrading, or harmful behaviours in order to be considered a ‘real’ team member. Empirical research on hazing provides an understanding of the interconnected variables impacting both the likelihood of hazing occurring as well as the outcomes of hazing. Variables such as athletic identity, sport status, power, team cohesion, and groupthink influence the prevalence and magnitude of hazing. Additionally, the culture of silence often prevents athletes from speaking out about the behaviours. The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First is to understand how the peer-to-peer behaviours embedded in hazing often lead to degradation and harm to teammates. Second is to integrate the aforementioned variables into a hazing framework. Framing hazing in a comprehensive model may assist practitioners in implementing intervention strategies and may assist researchers in progressing knowledge about hazing.
