The role of parenting styles and adolescent conscientiousness in social cognition: A path analysis mediated by parent-adolescent interaction.

Social cognition-inferring mental states from eye cues-is vital for adolescent adjustment, yet integrative models of its parenting and personality predictors are scarce, particularly in non-Western collectivistic contexts. This study tested a mediation model linking authoritative and permissive parenting styles and adolescent conscientiousness to social cognition via parent-adolescent interaction. In a cross-sectional design, 300 Iranian adolescent-parent dyads completed measures of parenting styles, conscientiousness, parent-adolescent communication, and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test-Child Version. Path analysis using PLS-SEM revealed that authoritative parenting (β = 0.25, p < .001) and conscientiousness (β = 0.18, p = .003) directly predicted social cognition. Authoritative parenting also showed a significant indirect effect through parent-adolescent interaction (β = 0.18, p < .001), whereas permissive parenting exhibited a negative indirect effect via the same mediator (β = -0.10, p < .05). The model accounted for 45% and 41% of the variance in interaction quality and social cognition, respectively. Findings underscore authoritative parenting and conscientiousness as direct correlates of social cognition, with interaction quality serving as a key mediating mechanism for parenting effects. This study provides the first integrative evidence for these pathways in a Middle Eastern collectivistic sample, highlighting family communication as a target for intervention.