The Role of Mentorship in Reducing Stress

Overview

The sources of stress abound for academic researchers. From concerns about publication quality and quantity to the perceived scarcity and insecurity of tenure-track jobs to seemingly forever tightening budgets [1], the factors that contribute to academic burnout, depression, and stress are manifold [2]. Those researchers who feel the most stress and are thus most susceptible to the negative mental health impacts are graduate students [3], postdoctoral researchers [4], and new and early career faculty [5]. In this article, we examine how effective mentoring can mitigate stress through empathy and a sense of belonging.

The Power of Mentorship in Academia

For centuries, most aspiring researchers have developed their skills and broadened their understanding of a field through an apprenticeship model. When employed successfully, the dynamic between mentor and mentee can be mutually beneficial and help students and junior faculty alike feel as though they are valued contributors to a community of scholars. Thus, mentorship, which involves deliberately behaving in a manner that serves the mentee’s best interests [6], can be a powerful tool in staving off burnout and preventing the loss of promising young researchers to other endeavors [3]. Though the majority of early- and mid-career academics desire mentorship [7], a survey of over 400 faculty from across the globe revealed that a sizable proportion of those faculty who were surveyed (20%) reported having no mentorship whatsoever [8].

How Mentorship Reduces Stress

Because mentorship is focused on facilitating positive impacts for mentees [9], it is helpful to consider some of the factors that can lead to negative feelings. Imposter syndrome, or the idea that someone will be found out as not belonging to a particular group [10], is pervasive among graduate students, who may worry that admissions committees will realize that they’ve “made a mistake” and that they “don’t belong” in academia. By addressing imposter syndrome directly, mentors can reaffirm their mentee’s standing in a program or institution and normalize struggles they may be encountering.

“This sense can be facilitated through building a connection with someone else,” states Josh Mangin, a Research Compliance Training Manager at the University of New England. “Effective mentoring is a relationship. Having the ability to talk with someone and know that they’re there gives us a sense of not being so isolated. This can be important and helpful when young researchers are wondering things like, ‘Why does my experiment keep failing?’ Hearing others’ experiences, like those of a mentor, can help people feel like they’re not alone.” Indeed, this sentiment is supported by research that links reduced stress among graduate students and post-doctoral fellows with an increased sense of belonging brought about by mentors [11].

Fostering a Supportive Research Environment

There are several sources available for mentors seeking to create the right laboratory culture. Mentors can use the widely shared primer for early-career academics, “Making the Right Moves”, which was produced by a collaboration between the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute [12]. Though written as a self-directed guide for early career faculty, the guide covers a number of topics, such as project management, that though they are fundamental to lab management, they are often not explicitly taught in graduate programs. This free document also includes a chapter (#5) on being and seeking a mentor. Other guides from institutions like Columbia University [13] and the University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching [14] also offer valuable resources, with the latter containing specific links targeted at meeting the needs of various demographic groups and discipline-specific considerations.

Though research mentorship encompasses several skills, according to Dr. R. Bruce Thompson, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern Maine, “In a broad way it (mentorship) boils down to a mentor’s metacognitive awareness, which is their ability to mentally represent, that is to have in mind the mental complexities of others’ perspectives and to also see their own. For example, in a more practical sense, this could mean being able to go back in time in their mind and understand what their own time management skills may have been (when they were a graduate student or junior faculty member) relative to their now more sophisticated sense of how to manage their time.”

Best Practice for Effective Mentorship

Although there is no one-size-fits-all form mentorship approach that will be applicable for all circumstances, mentors can be effective by paying attention to the interpersonal dynamic they have with their mentee(s). “The key,” relates Dr. Thompson, who is also the Director of the Maine Regulatory Training and Ethics Center at the University of Southern Maine, is “to have really clear, open communication. It is really on the mentor to establish the tone. They need to be up front when they start their relationship to say that this process involves me being clear with you and you being clear with me.” He goes on to say that “Mentors must give permission to the mentee to be explicit about their worries and concerns. This is the first step.”

Summary

Though research environments are by their very nature challenging, effective mentoring can reduce the levels of extraneous stress experienced by early career researchers (both faculty and students). This is accomplished by nurturing a sense of belonging, acknowledging the breadth and complexity of research roles, and through the establishment of open and ongoing dialogue between mentors and mentees.

References

1. Nicholls, Helen, Matthew Nicholls, Sahra Tekin, Danielle Lamb, and Jo Billings. 2022. “The impact of working in academia on researchers’ mental health and well-being: A systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis.” PloS One 17(5):e0268890.
2. Iacovides, Apostolos, Konstantinos N. Fountoulakis, St Kaprinis, and George Kaprinis. 2003. “The relationship between job stress, burnout and clinical depression.” Journal of Affective Disorders 75(3):209-21.
3. Allen, Hannah K., Flavius Lilly, Kerry M. Green, Faika Zanjani, Kathryn B. Vincent, and Amelia M. Arria. 2022. “Substance use and mental health problems among graduate students: Individual and program-level correlates.” Journal of American College Health 70(1):65-73.
4. Dorenkamp, Isabelle, and Eva-Ellen Weiß. 2017. “What makes them leave? A path model of postdocs’ intentions to leave academia.” Higher Education75:747-67.
5. Xu, Yin, and Yike Wang. 2023. “Job stress and university faculty members’ life satisfaction: The mediating role of emotional burnout.” Frontiers in Psychology 14:1111434.
6. Evans, Teresa M., Lindsay Bira, Jazmin Beltran Gastelum, L. Todd Weiss, and Nathan L. Vanderford. 2018. “Evidence for a mental health crisis in graduate education.” Nature Biotechnology 36(3):282-4.
7. Etzkorn, Karen B., and Ashton Braddock. 2020. “Are you my mentor? A study of faculty mentoring relationships in US higher education and the implications for tenure.” International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education 9(3):221-37.
8. Sarabipour, Sarvenaz, Natalie M. Niemi, Steven J. Burgess, Christopher T. Smith, Alexandre W. Bisson Filho, Ahmed Ibrahim, and Kelly Clark. 2023. “The faculty-to-faculty mentorship experience: a survey on challenges and recommendations for improvements.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290:20230983.
9. Schlosser, Lewis Z., Heather Z. Lyons, Regine M. Talleyrand, Bryan S.K. Kim, and W. Brad Johnson. 2011. “Advisor-Advisee Relationships in Graduate Training Programs.” Journal of Career Development 38(1): 3-18.
10. Kolligian Jr, John, and Robert J. Sternberg. 1991. “Perceived fraudulence in young adults: Is there a n’imposter syndrome’?” Journal of Personality Assessment 56(2):308-26.
11. Stachl, Christiane N., and Anne M. Baranger. 2020, “Sense of belonging within the graduate community of a research-focused STEM department: Quantitative assessment using a visual narrative and item response theory.” PloS One 15(5):e0233431.
12. Burroughs Wellcome Fund and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. 2006. “Making the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty.” Accessed October 25, 2024.
13. Columbia University Office of the Provost, 2016. “Guide to Best Practices in Faculty Mentoring.” Accessed October 25, 2024.
14. University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning & Teaching. n.d. “Resources on Faculty Mentoring.” Accessed October 25, 2024.