| In this study, I examined the role of hazing as a rite of passage on social identity development among medical residents. I hypothesized that when hazing is experienced as a part of a socialization process that is perceived as fair, social identity is maximized.;A total of 161 physicians in training participated in this study; 64.6% were female, 34.2% were male. Participants came from a range of disciplines and were at various stages of completion of their residency programs. The survey was administered on-line and participants completed two social identity measures, a justice measure, and a workplace mistreatment measure, which was used in the absence of a validated hazing measure. There were two waves of data collection. At Time 1, participants completed questions for all four variables. All participants were invited to return the following day to complete justice items, which served as the moderator variable; 22 participants returned to complete the survey at Time 2. Moderated multiple regression was conducted to test the hypothesis that there would be an interactional effect of hazing and perceived justice on social identity such that social identity is maximized under conditions of high hazing and high perceived justice.;The results indicated that justice was a significant predictor of social identity (beta = .35, p < .05) as measured by the social identification scale (Cameron, 2004), and both justice (beta = .29, p < .05) and hazing (beta = -.19, p < .05) were significant predictors of social identity. However, the interaction between justice and hazing was non-significant.;The results indicated that justice was a significant predictor of social identity as measured by both dependent variables, and hazing was a significant predictor only with one of the dependent variables. However, the interaction between justice and hazing was non-significant. Results suggest that a fair work environment, regardless of the level of hazing, is related to high social identity. Moreover, in environments of high organizational justice, when hazing occurs, social identity makes a sharp decline. |
