Interpersonal processes, cognitions, and predispositions: Young Adults’ Social Skills are Independent of Their Parents’ Social Skills

It has been suggested that young people's social skills are influenced by the parenting styles, and modeling of social skills by their parents. To test these hypotheses, 141 university students completed measures of social skills and engaged in a brief interpersonal interaction from which several behaviors indicative os social skills were assessed. In addition, 127 mothers and 111 fathers of these subjects completed measures of their own social skills and parenting styles. The results indicated that both parental parenting styles and parental social skills were poor predictors of the young adults’ social skills. In most cases parental predictors explained less than 10% of the variance of any of 15 social skills variables assessed in their children.