Listening, Play, and Social Attraction in the Mentoring of New Teachers

Abstract

This study explores the roles of mentors and protégés as they manage dialectical tensions in a professional environment. Sixty‐two first‐year teachers in a county school district in the southeastern USA answered a questionnaire about their mentors’ empathic and directive listening, playful communication, social attractiveness, and ability to help them manage dialectical tensions of socialization. Regression analyses revealed that both empathic and directive listening helped the protégé relieve these tensions. While playful communication did not directly explain relieving protégé’s tensions, it did predict social attraction. These findings support cognitive reappraisal and Rogerian models of helping, underscore the importance of listening to effective mentoring, and suggest that mentors receive training in empathic and directive listening techniques.

Keywords:

• mentoring
• listening
• empathy
• new teachers
• playful communication