A Perfect Match? A Scoping Review of the Influence of Personality Matching on Adult Mentoring Relationships—Implications for Academic Medicine

Abstract

Introduction: Mentoring is a widely regarded faculty development strategy in academic medicine. However, the lack of understanding about mentoring relationship dynamics limits effective recruitment, implementation, and evaluation. Despite decades of publications describing adult mentoring initiatives, few studies examine personality influence in mentoring relationships. This scoping review examined the extent, range, and nature of the research on personality matching in mentoring relationships, and identified research gaps in the literature. Methods: Scoping review methodology guided a search of six databases representing higher education, health sciences education, and professional contexts where mentoring is used. Consistent with the inclusive approach of a scoping review, authors included academic papers and other article types. Results: The scoping review yielded 39 articles. Literature mostly originated in the United States, publication sources represented multiple disciplines, and the context for the majority of articles was the workplace. The most common publication type was a research report. Although all articles addressed personality or mentoring, only three articles examined personality matching and its contribution to the mentoring relationship. Finally, although the Big Five personality traits were cited in multiple studies, other personality frameworks were used. Discussion: Academic medicine expends resources developing and supporting mentoring programs but there remains limited understanding of how best to identify and match mentors and protégés. Further understanding of the role of joint and unique personality traits in academic medicine mentoring relationships seems necessary, if the field continues to invest, time, money, and resources for mentoring programs.

The Use of Personality Assessment in Mentoring and to Aid in Self-reflection in Orthopaedic Surgery Residency Programs

“…This was surprising given that the HPI assesses qualities that describe how individuals relate to others and identifies how an individual is able to interact with other people as a predominant factor in social life success. 16 However, again the individuals who re-reviewed their results did report markedly more benefit of the HPI on their interpersonal relationships, further suggesting that introspective individuals may have a greater sense of awareness that improves interactions. Furthermore, even although residents reported a neutral to moderately positive impact of the HPI on their relationships with mentors, 74.2% of participants reported that they are satisfied or very satisfied with the mentorship they were receiving.…”

Forming mentoring relationships in graduate education: The role of personality

“…Mentor and protégé personality traits can be important factors in mentoring relationships (Campbell & Campbell, 2007; Green & Bauer, 1995; Turban & Lee, 2007; Turban et al, 2017) and some (Bozionelos & Bozionelos, 2010; Huggett et al, 2020; Turban et al, 2017) have called for further research to investigate the relationship between personality traits and initiation of mentoring. This call has been heeded by a few investigators who have examined the influence of specific personality traits of mentors and protégés (Arora & Rangnekar, 2015; Turban et al, 2017; Waters, 2004) on mentoring relationships and some continue to advocate for research in this area (Turban et al, 2017).…”

“…This call has been heeded by a few investigators who have examined the influence of specific personality traits of mentors and protégés (Arora & Rangnekar, 2015; Turban et al, 2017; Waters, 2004) on mentoring relationships and some continue to advocate for research in this area (Turban et al, 2017). Some studies have explored the five-factor model (FFM; Denissen et al, 2011; Huggett et al, 2020) of personality and its impact on mentoring, but none has explored specific facets of mentoring nor explored the influence of personality on the initiation of mentoring in graduate education, and more specifically in doctoral programs.…”

“…Several barriers to the formation and optimal development of mentoring relationships have been identified across multiple disciplines (Huggett et al, 2020;Johnson et al, 2022;Kram, 1988;Long, 1997;Schlosser & Foley, 2008). The relatively low prevalence of mentoring in graduate education may be indicative of environmental or personal barriers.…”

Mixed methods and wellbeing

“…Cheong, 2014;Heeneman & de Grave, 2019;Sng et al, 2017); career development or progression (Efstathiou et al, 2018;Garr & Dewe, 2013;Ong et al, 2018;Pethrick et al, 2017;Stamm & Buddeberg-Fischer, 2011) and the mentoring of students (Buddeberg-Fischer & Herta, 2006;Farkas, Allenbaugh, Bonifacino, Turner, & Corbelli, 2019;Frei et al, 2010;Kalén, Ponzer, Seeberger, Kiessling, & Silén, 2012; M. P. Mann, 1992;Ng, Lynch, Kelly, & Mba, 2020;Skjevik et al, 2020). It seems that much of the research has focused on academic medicine (Cross et al, 2019;Farkas, Bonifacino, Turner, Tilstra, & Corbelli, 2019;Geraci & Thigpen, 2017;Huggett, Borges, Blanco, Wulf, & Hurtubise, 2020;Kashiwagi, Varkey, & Cook, 2013;Sambunjak et al, 2006) with fewer studies related to individual specialties (Lee et al, 2019;Y. X. Ng et al, 2020;Sayan et al, 2019) or indeed covering multiple medical specialties (C. W. S. Cheong et al, 2020;.…”