The Double-Edged Power of Mentors: How Daily Feelings of Power Shape Mentees’ Experiences of Gender- and Race-Based Harm and Support

IF 3.7 2区社会学 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Sex Roles Pub Date : 2026-09-09 DOI:10.1007/s11199-026-01694-7

Margaret S. Stockdale, Amanda E. Mosier, Wei Wu, Jessica M. Kiebler, Ann C. Kimble-Hill

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Power asymmetries shape everyday mistreatment in workplaces and academic training settings, yet little is known about how mentors' momentary feelings of power affect mentees' daily gender- and race-based experiences in real time. Drawing on power-approach and power-amplification theories, we propose that mentors' daily felt power simultaneously energizes sexy-powerful and responsibility-focused feelings and moral crediting beliefs that shape mentees' experiences of sexual harassment, racial mistreatment, and incivility (collectively, HARM) and allyship. In Study 1 of 100 working adults, we validated a brief daily measure of power and found that it activated sexy-powerful and communal feelings, which showed opposing links to sexual harassment intentions. In Study 2, daily surveys from 202 mentor–mentee dyads over 10 days showed that mentors' daily power increased sexy-powerful feelings, communal feelings, and moral crediting beliefs. Contrary to predictions, sexy-powerful feelings predicted lower HARM to mentees, whereas communal feelings and moral crediting beliefs predicted higher incivility—a key component of HARM; moral crediting beliefs also predicted greater allyship. Some effects were stronger for women mentors and varied with lab gender composition and climate. These findings suggest that mentor training should promote responsibility but with explicit self-regulation and accountability to guard against the paradoxical harmful effects of feeling powerful.

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导师的双刃剑力量：日常的权力感受如何塑造学员对基于性别和种族的伤害和支持的体验

权力不对称塑造了工作场所和学术培训环境中的日常虐待，但很少有人知道导师的短暂权力感如何实时影响徒弟的日常性别和种族经验。根据权力接近和权力放大理论，我们提出导师的日常感觉权力同时激发了性别权力和责任为中心的感觉和道德信用信念，这些信念塑造了学员对性骚扰、种族虐待、不文明行为（统称为HARM）和盟友关系的经历。在对100名在职成年人的研究1中，我们验证了一种简短的日常权力测量，发现它激活了性权力和公共情感，这与性骚扰意图显示出相反的联系。在研究2中，对202对师徒二人为期10天的日常调查显示，导师的日常权力增加了性权力感、公共情感和道德信用信念。与预测相反，强大的性情感预示着对学员的伤害较低，而公共情感和道德信用信仰预示着更高的不礼貌——这是伤害的关键组成部分；道德信用信仰也预示着更大的盟友关系。女性导师的某些影响更强，并且随着实验室性别构成和气候的变化而变化。这些发现表明，导师培训应该促进责任，但要有明确的自我调节和问责制，以防止感觉强大的矛盾有害影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Sex Roles Multiple-

CiteScore

7.20

自引率

5.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Sex Roles: A Journal of Research is a global, multidisciplinary, scholarly, social and behavioral science journal with a feminist perspective. It publishes original research reports as well as original theoretical papers and conceptual review articles that explore how gender organizes people’s lives and their surrounding worlds, including gender identities, belief systems, representations, interactions, relations, organizations, institutions, and statuses. The range of topics covered is broad and dynamic, including but not limited to the study of gendered attitudes, stereotyping, and sexism; gendered contexts, culture, and power; the intersections of gender with race, class, sexual orientation, age, and other statuses and identities; body image; violence; gender (including masculinities) and feminist identities; human sexuality; communication studies; work and organizations; gendered development across the life span or life course; mental, physical, and reproductive health and health care; sports; interpersonal relationships and attraction; activism and social change; economic, political, and legal inequities; and methodological challenges and innovations in doing gender research.