Anchoring Relationships at Work: Mentors as Buffers to Ambient Racial Discrimination

Our study tested the “mentors as buffers hypothesis,” which holds that the presence of a mentor can buffer employees from the detrimental effects of a discriminatory workplace. Using a sample of 3,813 workers, we found that mentors can buffer employees from the negative effects of ambient racial discrimination. However, we also found that the type of mentor and the quality of the relationship mattered. Employees who witnessed or were exposed to racial discrimination at work had less organizational commitment than those not exposed, but those with informal mentors or high quality formal relationships experienced less loss of commitment than those lacking a mentor. Mentors may also be uniquely situated to buffer employees from the negative effects of a discriminatory workplace; buffering effects were not found for supportive supervisors or coworkers. These findings suggest that mentoring may be a unique anchoring relationship that helps employees maintain their commitment in the face of workplace discrimina...