Attachment to the mentor at the center of a chain reaction
Description
This study aimed to deepen the understanding of the causes and consequences of mentor attachment in faculty-student mentoring relationships by answering the questions of “why and under what conditions mentor attachment may develop” (Robertson & Zhang, 2024) and of “how it intervenes in mentoring’s contributions to student persistence and success”. The first hypothesis was that mentors who demonstrate interest in the academic, professional, and personal aspects of their students are more likely to embody the caring, expert support figure that students need (Mouhib, 2018). Because this figure has similarities to an attachment figure to turn to in times of difficulty (Soucy & Larose, 2000), the second hypothesis was that mentors who embody a caring, expert support figure may encourage mentees to develop an attachment to them, i.e. one that is low on the avoidance and anxiety dimensions. As suggested by Le et al. (2021), the third hypothesis was that mentor attachment may play a role in the contribution of mentoring to student well-being. Since the latter’s effects on success and persistence are well documented (e.g., Bücker et al., 2018), the fourth and fifth hypotheses were that the contribution of mentoring to well-being would be a determinant of its contributions to student persistence and success. This being the case, the two final hypotheses were that each dimension of 3D mentoring could activate a chain reaction that contributes to mentoring benefiting student persistence and success, within which the caring, expert support figure, mentor attachment and well-being would be successive mediators. Results support the hypotheses, except for the role of attachment anxiety.