Mentor and protégé goal orientations as predictors of newcomer stress

Abstract

Although many academic organizations offer formal mentoring programs, little is known about how individual characteristics of peer mentors and their protégés interact to reduce new-student stress. First-year college students participated in a peer-mentoring program designed to reduce stress. The results of this study demonstrated that protégés who received greater psychosocial and career support showed greater stress reduction. Additionally, protégés with a higher avoid performance goal orientation showed lesser stress reduction. Mentor avoid performance goal orientation was positively associated with stress reduction for protégés high on avoid performance goal orientation, but negatively associated for those low on avoid performance goal orientation.

Keywords

• newcomer socialization
• mentoring
• goal orientation
• stress reduction