Generativity development among college students who mentor: a sequential multimethod quantitative study

Abstract

PurposeGenerativity, defined as care for the next generation, is a hallmark of developmental theory (Erikson, 1950). Mentoring is an antecedent to generativity (Doerwald et al., 2021), with college students who mentor demonstrating higher generativity than their peers (Hastings et al., 2015). Yet no research has studied generativity development longitudinally among college students who mentor. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.Design/methodology/approachUsing MANCOVA analyses, Study 1 (N = 91) cross-sectionally examined the influence of years spent mentoring on generativity levels among college students who mentor in the USA. Study 2 (N = 44) employed growth curve analyses (GCA) in multilevel modeling (MLM) to analyze longitudinal changes in generativity over three timepoints, each one year apart, while accounting for the influence of gender.FindingsAlthough the results of the MANCOVA analyses in Study 1 were nonsignificant, Study 2 revealed a significant and positive increase in generative behavior. Specifically, generative behavior (e.g. teaching a skill or serving as a role model; McAdams and de St. Aubin, 1992) increased by 3.26 points, indicating that participants may have moved, for example, from performing a generative behavior never during the past two months to performing it more than once.Originality/valueThe current study advances the fields of college student development and mentoring by arguing for the utilization of mentoring interventions among college students to increase generativity and calling for changes to generativity measurement among collegiate populations.