Featured Topic: Mentoring

Featured Topic: Mentoring

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus entrusts his son to the care of Mentor, an older friend, while he is away at the Trojan War. Telemachus is young and in need of guidance; Mentor provides the wisdom, encouragement, and counsel he needs. From this ancient tale, we have taken the modern concept of mentoring.

In almost all spheres of activity, experienced coaches, teachers, and supervisors act as leaders and mentors, offering targeted guidance and role modeling to less-experienced individuals. SBP authors have investigated the influence of mentorship on career outcomes, the link between mentoring and adolescents’ self-esteem, and—getting right down to basics—whether mentorship actually works.

Beginning with this last line of inquiry, Gong et al. (2011) addressed the inconclusive results of previous studies by structuring their own research around a simple question: Does mentoring work? Their results were broadly positive, with mentoring found to mediate the relationship between mentees’ personal learning and career development, a desirable outcome for both employees and their organization. Workplace mentorships are a common way to upskill employees, and the organization then benefits from the mentee’s increased knowledge base. In this setting, Love et al. (2020) defined mentors as “socializing agents, providing protégés with multiple forms of support (i.e., instrumental and psychological) as well as knowledge about organizational values and goals.”

How can we increase the effectiveness of mentoring? Wang et al. (2016) observed that higher levels of knowledge-sharing behavior were linked to the perception of better mentoring quality. Dong and Deng (2016) focused on the organizational mentoring context, indicating that mentors’ knowledge-sharing behavior and personality traits influenced their mentees’ willingness to learn. Moore and Wang (2018) explored mentoring among executive-level employees, such as CEOs and founders, and reported that high levels of passion and preparedness had a positive effect on their mentoring experience.

Some mentor–mentee connections endure for the long-term: Li et al. (2022) conducted a longitudinal study to examine how the relationship-building behavior of new employees influenced their career success a year later. They found that mentor tie strength acted as a mediator of this relationship among employees with low network density, although the mediating effect was nonsignificant for those with high network density. In a nonworkplace setting, Lee et al. (2015) examined how a ubiquitous mentoring program, in which mentors were available at all times to mentees, influenced adolescents’ self-esteem and school adaptation flexibility. These authors found that the program served as a valuable support system, with a longer duration and higher quality of mentoring leading to particularly positive outcomes for the children enrolled.

Other papers in our archives and scheduled for forthcoming publication position mentoring as a mediator of the link between personal learning and career outcomes, and examine how supervisory mentoring is linked to basic psychological needs satisfaction. Keen to continue tracking the evolving research trends in this area from a behavioral and social psychology perspective? Sign up for a personal subscription to SBP to gain access to several thousand papers spanning the fields of social, behavioral, and developmental psychology.

Does mentoring work? The mediating effect of mentoring in China – Rueywei Gong, Shih-Ying Chen, and Shin-Lung Lee, 2011, 39(6), 807–824.

The influence of humor on workplace mentoring and employee attitudes – Zachary M. Love, Jennifer L. Bowler, and Mark C. Bowler, 2020, 48(9), Article e8459.

Impression management tactics of protégés and mentors’ knowledge-sharing behavior – Zhenyuan Wang, Huiping Zhang, Xi Chen, and Yongjia Duan, 2016, 44(11), 1825–1838.

Effect of interns’ learning willingness on mentors’ knowledge-sharing behavior – Mingyuan Dong and Dasong Deng, 2016, 44(2), 221-232.

Passion in executive mentoring influences organizational innovativeness – James Hatch Moore and Zhongming Wang, 2018, 46(2), 219–232.

How relationship-building behavior induces new employees’ career success: Effects of mentor tie strength and network density – Miaomiao Li, Zhenxing Gong, and Ganli Liao, 2022, 50(1), Article e10791.

Effects of a ubiquitous mentoring program on self-esteem, school adaptation, and perceived parental attitude – Kyunghee Lee, Mi Jung Kim, Tae Hee Park, and Ivy Lynne Alcazar-Bejerano, 2015, 43(7), 1193–1208.