144 Who Are Our Friends?
both instrumental and psychosocial support are required for mentoring to have
taken place.
More recently, researchers have acknowledged that mentoring relationships
develop over time and that there are relational processes involved. These research-
ers study how mentoring relationships unfold. Mentoring relationships develop
over time through what researchers call mentoring episodes (Allen & Poteet, 2011).
Mentoring episodes refer to specific, one- time behavioral interactions between
individuals. For example, a junior employee might reach out to a senior colleague
when she encounters a challenge at work. The pair goes to lunch to discuss the
challenge and how the junior person might address it. Both individuals find their
interaction to be enjoyable and agree to meet again in a few weeks. This first lunch
meeting would be the first mentoring episode. After a series of mentoring episodes,
their relationship may be said to be a mentoring one. The voluntary engagement
and participation of both the mentor and protégé, that is, reciprocity, is an impor-
tant feature of mentoring relationships (Huwe & Johnson, 2003).
Mentoring processes have also been found to be “non- linear and complex”
(Waterman & He, 2011, p. 151). The reciprocal nature of the relationship makes
it difficult to assess the flow of information. Further, these relationships are self-
organizing and often part of organizational efforts, in the case of formal mentoring
programs. Thus, the level of analysis is difficult to ascertain. This complexity gives
rise to questions such as (1) Should researchers focus on individual or organiza-
tional benefits, (2) When should outcomes be expected, and (3) For whom?
The extent to which people participate in mentoring relationships is less clear
than it is for friendships, perhaps because of definitional or methodological differ-
ences. Researchers who use a case study approach to understand mentoring find
it to be a rare relationship (Levinson, 1978; Levinson & Levinson, 1996; Vaillant,
1977). Investigators who used surveys to study mentoring find it to occur more fre-
quently. The organizational context is also important. Professions and educational
organizations appear to have mentorship built into their educational, professional
development, and advancement activities. For example, research on military set-
tings finds 45% of individuals have mentors (Baker et al., 2003), while two- thirds of
talented undergraduates (Lunsford, 2011), three- quarters of scientists (Lunsford,
2014), and almost all doctoral students reported having a mentor (Lunsford, 2012).
In summary, an examination of the definitions of friendship and mentorship sug-
gests three areas of similarity. First, the psychosocial function provided by mentors
is similar to friendship. Listening, confidence building, and providing emotional
support are activities that mentors and friends engage in with their relational part-
ner. Second, both relationships develop over time. This is not unique to friendships
or mentorships but rather is perhaps a condition of any human relationship. Third,
both relationships involve reciprocity. Mentors and protégés, just like friends, must
engage in some exchange of ideas, time, and feedback to maintain their relationship
status.