Generativity in College Students: Comparing and Explaining the Impact of Mentoring

Preparing college students to be active contributors to the next generation is an important function of higher education. This assumption about generativity forms a cornerstone in this mixed methods study that examined generativity levels among 273 college students at a 4-year public university. MANCOVA results indicated that college students who mentor demonstrated significantly higher generativity than non-mentoring students. Interviews with 9 mentoring students revealed that, although a “seed of generativity” may have already been planted, their mentoring experience served as a “lab” for learning how to be generative. The integrated findings offer important contributions relative to leadership and social responsibility.