ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how mentoring research may inform positive relationships at work, and the potential for expanding the scope of mentoring theory by linking relational and social cognitive theory to mentoring. It explains the impact of mentoring schemas on the expectations, behaviors, and evaluation of the relationship. Mentoring schemas include not only self-schemas and other schemas, but also interpersonal scripts generated from self and other schemas, which in turn reinforce these cognitive structures. This theory of mentoring schemas offers substantial guidance for future research on relational mentoring and social cognitive processes in mentoring relationships. A social cognitive perspective offers methodological guidance for future mentoring research. Social cognition theory examines how people mentally organize and represent information about themselves and others. Relational cognition theory offers a theoretically rich lens for uncovering the complex cognitive processes involved with mentoring and other positive relationships at work.
