Final answer:
Reverse mentoring can sometimes lead to discomfort due to its inversion of traditional roles, with junior employees mentoring senior ones. Mentorships contribute significantly to career success and are particularly important for women and individuals from underrepresented groups. Same gender or race mentoring can improve psychosocial support, while cross-gender or race mentoring may enhance career progression.
Step-by-step explanation:
Reverse mentoring relationships sometimes leave both parties uncomfortable. Reverse mentoring is a concept where junior employees mentor senior employees, often with a focus on areas such as technology and current trends. This concept can lead to discomfort as it flips traditional hierarchy and power structures, thereby sometimes challenging the norms within an organization.
Concerning the provided options, which deal with sanctions and authority within social dynamics, none directly refer to mentoring. However, mentoring aligns with the broader umbrella of social interactions within organizational behavior and can be viewed through the lens of gender roles, segregation, authority, and informational social influence as detailed in the provided references.
Mentoring relationships have significant impacts on career success, especially for women and underrepresented individuals. Although access to mentors is not typically lacking, access to mentors that share the same gender, race, or ethnicity as the mentee is less common in senior roles. These kinds of same-gender or same-race/ethnicity pairings often lead to better psychosocial outcomes, while cross-gender or cross-race/ethnicity mentoring can lead to better career advancement.
Furthermore, in the Asch experiment, participants demonstrated normative social influence, conforming to a group even when they know it is incorrect, highlighting the power of social pressures. Informational social influence, conversely, tends to occur when individuals look to a group for guidance in uncertain situations, as they believe the group holds expertise.