What We Bring to the Table: An Examination of the Developing Relationship Between Youth Mentees and Their College Mentors

Mentoring programs are a popular approach for supporting youth through relationships with adult mentors, but few mentoring studies have included the mentor perspective. The present study comprised 80 undergraduate mentors (M age = 19.83, 52.5% White, 76.3% female) and elementary-aged mentees (M age = 10.61, 91.3% Black, 53.8% female). Mentee and mentor perceptions of the mentoring relationship and their other adult social supports were assessed over an academic year, in addition to mentor internalizing problems. It was hypothesized that mentor and mentee mentoring relationship quality would both be predicted by and predict the other variables of interest. For mentees, cross-lagged panel models indicated pre-existing adult social supports were positively associated with perception of the mentoring relationship, while for mentors, multiple regression highlighted the negative association of mentor internalizing problems with perceived mentoring relationship quality. These findings highlight the need for dyadic perspectives in future mentoring research.