Anchoring Relationships at Work: High‐Quality Mentors and Other Supportive Work Relationships as Buffers to Ambient Racial Discrimination

Belle Rose Ragins · Kyle P. Ehrhardt · Karen S. Lyness · Dianne Deborah Murphy · John F. Capman

86 citations0/0 files storedPersonnel Psychology

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Mentoring and Academic Development Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior Career Development and Diversity

Abstract

Applying a unifying theoretical framework of high‐quality work relationships, we conducted a set of 3 complementary studies that examined whether high‐quality mentoring relationships can buffer employees from the negative effects of ambient discrimination at work. Integrating relational mentoring with relational systems theory, we first examined whether the presence of a high‐quality mentoring relationship buffers employees in a sample of 3,813 workers. In support of the “mentors‐as‐buffers” hypothesis, we found that employees who witnessed or were aware of racial discrimination at work had lower organizational commitment than those not exposed, but employees with high‐quality mentoring relationships experienced less loss of commitment than those lacking mentors. We then examined the specific buffering behaviors used by mentors in high‐quality relationships and whether these behaviors were effective for other work relationships and outcomes. Applying Kahn's typology, we developed and validated a measure of high‐quality relational holding behaviors in a sample of 262 workers. Using this measure in a third sample of 557 workers, we found that mentors buffer by providing holding behaviors, but we did not find this buffering effect when supervisors or coworkers provided holding behaviors. This potent mentor buffering effect held across a range of outcomes, including organizational commitment, physical symptoms of stress, insomnia, and stress‐related absenteeism. These studies suggest that mentoring may be a singularly effective relationship that offers a safe harbor for employees faced with ambient discrimination at work.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 86 citations exist upstream.

References

1985Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis.1969Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity 1984Research in Organizational Behavior 1990A review and meta-analysis of the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of organizational commitment.1992Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness.2009Perceived discrimination and health: A meta-analytic review.1995Validity of psychological assessment: Validation of inferences from persons' responses and performances as scientific inquiry into score meaning.2011Mechanisms Linking Social Ties and Support to Physical and Mental Health

Cited by

2017Coping with newcomer “Hangover”: How socialization tactics affect declining job satisfaction during early employment 2021Integrating relational systems theory with ethical leadership: how ethical leadership relates to employee turnover intentions 2024A Stakeholder Perspective on Diversity Within Organizations 2023A study on barriers to women’s leadership in India through ISM 2020Antecedents and Outcomes of Callings for University Students: An Examination of Mentoring and Insight Experiences

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.