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

Intentional self-regulatory, or goal-directed, skills are essential for positivesocial relationships, success, and well-being during adolescence. Priortheory has suggested that mentoring relationships may provide a keyresource for building these skills. However, there is little direct evidencelinking mentoring relationships to growth in youth intentionalself-regulation (ISR). Accordingly, we examined the bidirectional relationsbetween mentor–mentee relationship and ISR using data from 415mentor–mentee dyads from programs around the United States. The 415youth (48% female) ranged in age from 10.14 to 20.65 and wereethnically and socioeconomically diverse. The 114 mentors (58.8% female;64% Caucasian) were, on average, 33.6 years of age. Results fromcross-lagged structural equation modeling indicated that a latent factor ofmentor–mentee relationship predicted growth in a latent factor of youthISR. These findings support the role of mentors in promoting youth ISR.The implications of these findings for the training of practitioners arediscussed.