Entries by Jean Rhodes

When Students (Not Chatbots) Help Students, Everyone Flourishes

By Jean Rhodes In 2020, Tyler VanderWeele and his team at Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program tracked nearly 13,000 adults to explore the longitudinal effects of altruism. Their findings, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, were striking. People who volunteered at least two hours a week reported significantly higher levels of happiness and life […]

Undergraduate career mentoring: Social mobility panacea or ethical dilemma?

Lyden, T. (2026). Undergraduate career mentoring: Social mobility panacea or ethical dilemma? International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMCE-12-2024-0135 By Jean Rhodes Most people working in higher education mentoring operate from a simple premise. Connecting undergraduates with employers and professionals helps them navigate a labor market and build social capital. It is hard […]

Important New Evaluation Highlights the Promise (and Limits) of CBT-Informed Mentoring

By Jean Rhodes A new randomized controlled trial of the YMCA’s Reach and Rise program, led by Roger Jarjoura and colleagues and published in the American Journal of Community Psychology, deserves close attention (Jarjoura et al., 2026). It offers rare experimental evidence that a volunteer mentoring program grounded in cognitive behavioral principles can reduce externalizing […]

A Super Bowl Ad With Psychology Behind It

On Sunday, millions of viewers watched the NFL’s 60-second Super Bowl LX commercial, Champion, featuring a young boy in his bedroom delivering a motivational speech to his action figures and stuffed animals, echoing word for word the speech his coach had given him on the field. “I am a champion,” the boy says, as the scene […]