The psychology behind pledging

In the midst of fraternity and sorority pledging season, some question the effectiveness of the methods used to bond new members together.

Many friends share stories about forced heavy drinking and various acts of humiliation carried out behind closed doors during this time of year. All of this, supposedly, is for the sake of forging strong bonds within organizations.

“Pledging is effective to a certain point, and beyond that point it just becomes cruel and unnecessary,” said one College freshman currently in the process of pledging an on-campus fraternity. “One class gets through it all, and they’re so happy to be done with it that they have to watch somebody else go through it. Everyone always says that pledging is ‘the best time you never want to have again.’”

Psychology professor Gordon Bermant, an initiated member of Phi Delta Theta at UCLA, contrasted fraternity pledging to military combat. He said that in combat, “what people talk about is how others sacrificed for them.” However, from his memory as a pledge, he said the process seeks to simulate a similar kind of adversity, but in fact creates a “highly artificialized kind of playtime adversity.”

“It doesn’t create the reality of those who have suffered together and come out the other end,” Bermant said. “It’s not done in a way that people can consolidate and fight back or help each other in a time of great need.”

Psychology professor Coren Apicella explained that it is human nature to look out for one another.

“Bonding may be a mechanism that sustains cooperation between people after painful and negative events,” she said.

“Our species’ biological success is largely attributed to our remarkable capacity to cooperate,” Apicella added. “The fact that natural disasters and other tragedies are rife with examples of selfless acts — acts where people go to extraordinary lengths to help others in need — is not surprising.”

However, the freshman pledge said pledging events supposedly designed to foster cooperation often have counterproductive motives.

“I don’t think it’s that effective when people are individually being forced to put the rest of the pledge class on their back,” the pledge said. “Obviously it works out well when that person does a particularly good job at whatever the task is, but often they’re set up to fail.”

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