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Natural Mentors and Adolescent Resiliency: A Study with Urban Youth
Author(s) -
Zimmerman Marc A.,
Bingenheimer Jeffrey B.,
Notaro Paul C.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1023/a:1014632911622
Subject(s) - health psychology , juvenile delinquency , psychology , natural (archaeology) , anxiety , natural experiment , public health , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , social psychology , medicine , psychiatry , nursing , archaeology , pathology , history
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.