Attachment Tendencies, Big 5 Personality Traits, and Self-Efficacy as Predictors of Mentors' Relationships with Aggressive Children

Exploring how naturally occurring mentorships emerge within a Mexican cultural context

Natural youth mentoring focuses on cross-age relationships that develop organically outside the construct of youth programs. In the United States, research has demonstrated the positive impact of these mentorships and scholars have applied natural concepts to formal mentoring schema. Little work has been done to examine how these relationships emerge and the factors that impact their development. This study, designed in partnership with a school in rural México, aimed to unpack these questions using grounded theory. Participants were students, alumni, and teachers. Data were collected through semistructured interviews. Findings indicate that despite adults' interest to create mentorships, adolescents and emerging adults will likely not be receptive until they are cognitively and emotionally ready. This study illuminated three factors of readiness-inhibitors, promoters, and activators-which contribute to this state of readiness at which point engagement with an adult seems to elevate from the typical bounds of youth-adult relationships to the natural mentorship level.

Striking the Balance: The Relative Benefits of Goal- and Youth-Focused Approaches to Youth Mentoring Relationships

Targeted, goal-focused approaches to mentoring can improve behavioral and mental health outcomes than more recreational, non-specific approaches. However, a focus on goals needs to be balanced with openness to including mentees' preferences. This study builds on prior work by exploring the benefits of goal- and youth-focused approaches to mentoring relationships from the youth mentee's perspective, including their associations with relationship measures (closeness and tension) and mental health outcomes (i.e., conduct problems, emotional symptoms, and depressive symptoms). This study was a secondary analysis of data from 2165 youth participating in thirty nationally representative mentoring programs in the United States. On average, youth were 12.3-years-old (SD = 1.43, range = 9-16) and the majority were female (55%); 36.7% were Black/African American, 22.4% were White, and 23.5% were Latino/Hispanic. Path analyses revealed 1) youth- and goal-focused approaches were positively associated with closeness, 2) youth-focused approaches were negatively associated with tension, 3) goal-focused approaches were positively associated with tension. At follow-up, a stronger mentoring relationship (less tension and greater closeness) was related to positive youth outcomes. As the field of mentoring corrects for an overemphasis on intuitive approaches and moves towards more targeted directions, it should resist veering too far from what sets the field apart from skills-training models: the role of a caring relationship.

Mentor personality and attachment as correlates of youth mentoring relationship quality within a school-based mentoring intervention: The moderating role of negative interactions

AIMS

Mentor relationship quality is considered a mechanism linking youth mentoring to positive developmental outcomes. It is important to understand the factors that promote high-quality youth mentoring relationships. The current investigation examined whether certain mentor characteristics were associated with youth mentoring relationship quality.

METHOD

Children (n = 55) were participating in an efficacy trial of a lunchtime mentoring program for aggressive children. Children received two different mentors over the course of an academic year, resulting in 104 unique mentoring dyads. Analyses examined the unique and interactive influence of mentor personality, attachment style, and negative interactions within the mentoring relationship on mentoring relationship quality.

RESULTS

For both child- and mentor-reported relationship quality, negative interactions moderated the association between some dimensions of mentor personality and relationship quality.

CONCLUSION

Understanding the influence of mentor personality and attachment tendencies on mentoring relationships requires an appreciation for the context of the mentoring relationship and broader goals of the mentoring intervention.