Superficial, cultish, alcohol-fueled. What all the partiers join, the girly girls, the pompous guys. These are some common stereotypes associated with Greek Life – sororities and fraternities in college. And, like many others approaching rush, I fell victim to the power of these stereotypes, and I want to examine why. While I do not regret my decision not to rush, I think we can all learn a little something from my flawed process for opting out. From my various courses in psychology, I’m gonna put this process under the scientific magnifying glass to figure out what was really going into my approach.

1. Media-Influenced Stereotyping

We can all conjure up some images of what we considered the typical “sorority girls” when we were younger. A bunch of pretty girly-girls dressed in all the same clothes, excitedly chanting their Greek Letters without much thought. Where do these images come from? Perhaps someone we know joined a sorority, someone’s older sister, a friend or a friend of a friend. More likely, though, I think the most common image of a sorority girl comes from the media. Movies like Sorority Row, American Pie, or House Bunny may come to mind. Images of scantily clad, stereotypically blonde, tan, vapid women that movies like this promote. I don’t support the objectification and stereotyping of college women in the way that these movies seem to portray, so, somewhat ironically I wrote off sororities as supporting that sort of lifestyle. In some ways, because of my negative reaction to these movies, I applied the same negative stereotypes to sororities themselves. I saw people joining sororities as accepting the stereotypes and going along with them. Brain?? What are you doing up there??

2. Self-schemas

A self-schema is defined as (thanks wikipedia) a long lasting and stable set of memories that summarize a person’s beliefs, experiences and generalizations about the self, in specific behavioral domains. To break this down a little, a self schema is basically a belief or story that a person tells themselves about themselves that affects how they behave towards certain situations. For example, in this situation my belief that I am an authentic, grounded and independent individual clashed with my stereotyped beliefs that sororities are superficial, cultish, and alcohol-fueled. Since I had these self-schemas that seemed to go against what I thought of sororities, I behaved in a way that separated myself from what I saw as going against my values. I think this is a flawed way of thinking because I failed to recognize my self stereotypes and the ways they interacted with outside stereotypes. In my opinion, there are more powerful ways to make decisions.

3. Culture of Cool

Another reason I opted out of rush is because I believed that it supported a certain “culture of cool,” in which people judge each other as more or less cool, and therefore worthy to get into a certain sorority or not. The idea I applied to this situation is that I have a very very low tolerance for individuals believing they are objectively better or worse than other individuals. While I continue to hold this stance, my knee jerk reaction was to then do the most hypocritical thing possible: think that I was "above" the whole “sorority frenzy” and refrain from rushing. Another flawed way of going about the decision in hindsight, because I didn't consider the possibility that sorority girls weren't judging on a basis of cool, but rather a basis of best fit.

4. Failing to Recognize a Long Term Investment

Something I didn’t even consider until after rush ended was that it really is a lifetime investment if it’s something you enjoy and want to be associated with. A ton of people get hired because of connections they make through their sororities and fraternities. My dad, for one, was the president of his fraternity in college, was later hired by his fraternity, and stays close friends with his fraternity brothers. All because he decided to rush his freshman year of college. While I’m sure most people aren’t thinking about being in a sorority or fraternity as a chore that they have to do in order to get hired later, that Greek Life name recognition could still serve them later in life. It wasn’t something I thought of before rush since I was only thinking in short-term terms.

5. Self-handicapping

While I don’t really think I was subconsciously handicapping myself in this process, I do see self-handicapping as a possible reason that people don’t rush. The idea behind self-handicapping is that a person inhibits their own performance so that if they fail, they can attribute the failure to that inhibition. It’s like not studying for a test, so if you fail you can say “Well I didn’t study,” instead of “Well I studied but I still didn't do well.” It’s a way of protecting one’s own ego from failure. So it’s possible people subconsciously think it’s better not to rush and not get in than to rush and not get in, because then they don’t have to tell everyone that they tried and failed – because that doesn’t feel too hot.

What I Take Away From This Experience:

Like I said, I don’t regret my decision not to rush. I don’t think that Greek Life is for everyone, but maybe for different reasons than I previously suspected. At Stanford, where I go to school, students tend to respect each others’ decisions not to drink, and normally aren’t judging each other on “coolness.” I think that the culture of cool I was referring to is less prevalent than I assumed, and that those participating in rush week really do have the intention to find the best fit sorority for the hopeful freshmen. With all of this in mind, I think I can also learn a lot from the way I approached this problem – with lots of stereotypes and beliefs – because in the future I want to make life choices in different ways that aren’t so rooted in assumptions. I could write a whole other article about the pros and cons of joining a sorority, but for now I’m hoping to take away a new mindset towards making previously uninformed decisions.