A Cross-Lagged Model of the Development of Mentor-Mentee Relationships and Intentional Self-Regulation in Adolescence

Abstract

Intentional self‐regulatory, or goal‐directed, skills are essential for positive social relationships, success, and well‐being during adolescence. Prior theory has suggested that mentoring relationships may provide a key resource for building these skills. However, there is little direct evidence linking mentoring relationships to growth in youth intentional self‐regulation (ISR). Accordingly, we examined the bidirectional relations between mentor–mentee relationship and ISR using data from 415 mentor–mentee dyads from programs around the United States. The 415 youth (48% female) ranged in age from 10.14 to 20.65 and were ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. The 114 mentors (58.8% female; 64% Caucasian) were, on average, 33.6 years of age. Results from cross‐lagged structural equation modeling indicated that a latent factor of mentor–mentee relationship predicted growth in a latent factor of youth ISR. These findings support the role of mentors in promoting youth ISR. The implications of these findings for the training of practitioners are discussed.

Unpacking Community-Based Youth Mentoring Relationships: An Integrative Review

“…Mentors’ rated support was also related to an increase in empathy, cooperation, self-control, assertiveness [ 49 ], social self-efficacy, and sense of community [ 50 ]. Mentees’ rated feelings of trust and closeness with their mentors were positively associated with an increase in social support and family bonding, scholastic competence, feelings of self-worth [ 18 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ], self-regulation [ 55 ], hope, self-esteem, self-efficacy, academic pursuits [ 56 ], active coping skills [ 57 ], general mental health and career efficacy [ 58 ], academic outcomes [ 45 ], and future-planning style and career goal setting [ 59 ]. Similarly, mentees’ perceived high support from their mentors and low conflict within the mentoring relationship predicted a decrease in externalizing problems in a long-term mentoring program aimed at reducing aggressive behaviors [ 47 ].…”

Relationship between hope and depression in college students: A cross‐lagged regression analysis

“…Generally, if changes in one variable lead to changes in another variable, the changes in the dependent variable are likely to lag behind changes in the independent variable. Cross‐lagged regression provides regression coefficients for one variable at various time points and different variables over time and identifies causal relationships between the variables based on the corresponding regression coefficients . The current study included depression as a representative variable to explore the relationships between mental health and the two dimensions of hope.…”

School engagement and intentional self‐regulation: A reciprocal relation in adolescence

“…To assess the presence of a reciprocal relation between school engagement and ISR across the four times of measurement used in this study, a series of factor analyses and structural equation models were estimated using version 7.3 of the Mplus software (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2012). To reduce model complexity, parceling was used by aggregating the items of each of the constructs subdimensions (see e.g., Bowers, Wang, Tirrell, & Lerner, 2016). All measures for ISR and school engagement were treated as continuous variables (Lozano, García‐Cueto, & Muñiz, 2008) and estimates of latent factors were scaled using the fixed‐factor method of scaling.…”