Natural Mentors and Adolescent Resiliency: A Study with Urban Youth
Open accessAbstract
Natural mentors may play an important role in the lives of adolescents. We interviewed 770 adolescents from a large Midwestern city. Fifty‐two percent reported having a natural mentor. Those with natural mentors were less likely to smoke marijuana or be involved in nonviolent delinquency, and had more positive attitudes toward school. Natural mentors had no apparent effect on anxiety or depression. Using the resiliency theory framework, natural mentors were found to have compensatory but not protective effects on problem behaviors, and both compensatory and protective effects on school attitudes. Direct and indirect (mediated) effects of natural mentors are explored for problem behaviors and school attitudes. The potential importance of natural mentors is supported, and implications for future research are considered.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Results on natural mentoring during adolescence have not been consistent across outcomes or in some instances were even equivocal.
“results have not been consistent across outcomes or in some instances were even equivocal (DuBois & Silverthorn, 2005a; Rhodes, Contreras, & Mangelsdorf, 1994; Zimmerman, Bingenheimer, & Notaro, 2002)”
From Does Natural Mentoring Matter? A Multilevel Meta‐analysis on the Association Between Natural Mentoring and Youth Outcomes (2018) · cites this paper as Zimmerman, Bingenheimer, & Notaro, 2002
Cites
Hawkins, J. D., Catalano, R. F., & Miller, J. Y. (1992) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.112.1.64 · Cited by 5,428 · see citing works
COMPETENCE AND STRESS IN SCHOOL CHILDREN: THE MODERATING EFFECTS OF INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY QUALITIES
Masten, A. S., Garmezy, N., Tellegen, A., Pellegrini, D. S., Larkin, K., & Larsen, A. (1988) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.1988.tb00751.x · Cited by 457 · see citing works
Primary socialization theory: the etiology of drug use and deviance. I
Oetting, E. R., & Donnermeyer, J. F. (1998) · Substance Use & Misuse · doi:10.3109/10826089809056252 · Cited by 419 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Adolescent Resilience: Promotive Factors That Inform Prevention
Zimmerman, M. A., Stoddard, S. A., Eisman, A. B., Caldwell, C. H., Aiyer, S. M., & Miller, A. (2013) · Child Development Perspectives · doi:10.1111/cdep.12042 · Cited by 489 · see citing works
Self-citationSmalls, C., White, R., Chavous, T., & Sellers, R. (2007) · Journal of Black Psychology · doi:10.1177/0095798407302541 · Cited by 243 · see citing works
Understanding and facilitating the youth mentoring movement
Rhodes, J. E., & DuBois, D. L. (2006) · Child Policy Nexus · doi:10.1002/j.2379-3988.2006.tb00048.x · Cited by 198 · see citing works
Pisani, A. R., Wyman, P. A., Petrova, M., Schmeelk-Cone, K., Goldston, D. B., Xia, Y., & Gould, M. S. (2013) · Journal of Youth and Adolescence · doi:10.1007/s10964-012-9884-2 · Cited by 183 · see citing works
Van Dam, L., Smit, D., Wildschut, B., Branje, S. J. T., Rhodes, J. E., Assink, M., & Stams, G. J. J. M. (2018) · American Journal of Community Psychology · doi:10.1002/ajcp.12248 · Cited by 174 · see citing works
“In this way, natural mentors may counteract or neutralize the relational risk that many youth face (Zimmerman et al., 2002).”
BackgroundRutten, E. A., Stams, G. J. J. M., Biesta, G. J. J., Schuengel, C., Dirks, E., & Hoeksma, J. B. (2007) · Journal of Youth and Adolescence · doi:10.1007/s10964-006-9085-y · Cited by 142 · see citing works
The mentor-youth alliance: The role of mentoring relationships in promoting youth competence
Zand, D. H., Thomson, N., Cervantes, R., Espiritu, R., Klagholz, D., LaBlanc, L., & Taylor, A. (2009) · Journal of Adolescence · doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2007.12.006 · Cited by 130 · see citing works
The quality of mentoring relationships and mentoring success
Goldner, L., & Mayseless, O. (2009) · Journal of Youth and Adolescence · doi:10.1007/s10964-008-9345-0 · Cited by 122 · see citing works
Mentees’ Perceptions of Their Interpersonal Relationships: The Role of the Mentor—Youth Bond
Renick Thomson, N., & Zand, D. H. (2010) · Youth & Society · doi:10.1177/0044118x09334806 · Cited by 99 · see citing works
Youth mentoring in perspective: Introduction to the special issue
Rhodes, J. E., Bogat, G. A., Roffman, J., Edelman, P., & Galasso, L. (2002) · American Journal of Community Psychology · doi:10.1023/a:1014676726644 · Cited by 87 · see citing works
The Role of Mentor Type and Timing in Predicting Educational Attainment
Fruiht, V. M., & Wray-Lake, L. (2013) · Journal of Youth and Adolescence · doi:10.1007/s10964-012-9817-0 · Cited by 78 · see citing works
Hurd, N. M., & Zimmerman, M. A. (2014) · American Journal of Community Psychology · doi:10.1007/s10464-013-9598-y · Cited by 74 · see citing works
Self-citationJohnson, S. K., Buckingham, M. H., Morris, S. L., Suzuki, S., Weiner, M. B., Hershberg, R. M., Fremont, E. R., Batanova, M., Aymong, C. C., Hunter, C. J., et al. (2016) · Research in Human Development · doi:10.1080/15427609.2016.1164552 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Erdem, G., DuBois, D. L., Larose, S., De Wit, D., & Lipman, E. L. (2016) · Journal of Community Psychology · doi:10.1002/jcop.21782 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
Goldner, L. (2016) · Child & Youth Care Forum · doi:10.1007/s10566-015-9319-9 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Long-term mentors’ perceptions of building mentoring relationships with at-risk youth
Smith, C. A., Newman-Thomas, C., & Stormont, M. (2015) · Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning · doi:10.1080/13611267.2015.1073566 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
- Authors
- Zimmerman, M. A., Bingenheimer, J. B., & Notaro, P. C.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- University of Missouri (US)
- Corresponding author
- Zimmerman, Marc A.
- Venue
- American Journal of Community Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2002-04
- Volume
- 30
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 221-243
- ISSN
- 0091-0562 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-2770
- OpenAlex
- W2168062881
- Cited by
- 413
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 24 · 2012: 22
- FWCI
- 10.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- American Journal of Community Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA07484, R01DA007484)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mentoring and Academic Development
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Youth Development and Social Support
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Resilience and Mental Health
- Keywords
- adolescent resilience, urban youth, compensation effect, protective effect, cannabis use, attitudes toward school, anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, indirect effects
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adolescent Behavior, Analysis of Variance, Child, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Interviews as Topic, Juvenile Delinquency, Male, Marijuana Smoking, Mentors, Risk-Taking, Social Adjustment, Student Dropouts, Urban Population, Midwestern United States
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
