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Positive Psychology

Understanding Patterns of Hope in Natural Mentoring through Latent Class Analysis

(PS10-79) Understanding Patterns of Hope in Natural Mentoring Through Latent Class Analysis

Saturday, November 16, 2024
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST
Location: Franklin Hall, Level 4, Marriott Downtown
Abstract Text: Today’s youth feel unprecedented levels of loneliness and social isolation (Cigna, 2018). Loneliness is a global epidemic that influences mental health outcomes. In the face of loneliness, youth are craving social connection and meaningful relationships. Mentors can play a pivotal role in providing this connection and guidance. Youth mentoring, both naturally occurring and program sponsored, is associated with positive youth outcomes across various domains (Raposa et al., 2019). Mentors are safe, stable, nurturing relationships, which can buffer against adverse childhood experiences and negative mental health outcomes (Bethell et al., 2019). Such relationships have also been found to promote hope, a powerful attribute that mitigates loneliness and associated negative mental health outcomes, and helps foster wellbeing (Bryn et al., 1994; Jiang et al., 2018). This study investigated how natural mentoring relationships may influence hope among different types of people across the United States. Natural mentors form relationships with mentees through pre-existing connections, and have flexible, unstructured relationships compared to program sponsored mentors. Natural mentors help youth in different ways, depending on the circumstances of their relationship and the mentee’s characteristics, preferences, or circumstances. Despite the recognized significance of natural mentoring relationships, researchers have paid little attention to understanding how and why natural mentoring benefits vary among mentees. Using latent class analysis, we explored the characteristics of people associated with the perceived benefits of natural mentoring, hope. Data were drawn from the nationally representative random sample of the National Mentoring Partnership’s (MENTOR) ongoing two-phase research study understanding the mentoring experience and its impact on American adults across generations (N=2,400). Our analyses were limited to those who indicated they had a natural mentor during childhood (n=935). Participants completed surveys to retroactively explore the extent to which their natural mentor helped them foster hope. Analyses revealed that mentees’ perceptions around how much natural mentors foster hope are heterogenous. Three classes emerged, which were primarily distinguished by racial and ethnic minority status and generation. The Hopefuls, as their name implies, endorsed a significantly higher level of fostered hope from natural mentoring than the other two classes (B = 0.325, p = 0.021, d = 0.23; B = 0.297, p =0.032, d=0.30). The Young Less Hopefuls and Older Less Hopefuls endorsed similar levels of fostered hope from natural mentoring, with Young Less Hopefuls indicating slightly lower levels of fostered hope than Older Less Hopefuls (B = -0.028, d=0.03, p=0.786). These findings suggest that certain mentees may be more likely than others to perceive hope from their natural mentoring relationships, especially when considering the mentee’s generation and racial and ethnic status. Future research should further explore these differences in natural mentoring benefits to uncover the nuances of natural mentoring relationships and how they can be used to help youth in light of today’s challenges.