The Psychological State Scale, Multigenerational Interconnectedness Scale, and the Parental Authority Questionnaire were administered to 2,893 Arab adolescents in eight Arab societies. In these tests, adolescents raised according to the inconsistent parenting scored lower in connectedness and higher in mental disorders than those raised according to the controlling or flexible-oriented parenting pattern. Authoritative parenting was associated with a higher level of connectedness with the family and better mental health of adolescents. A higher level of adolescent-family connectedness is associated with better mental health of adolescents. Results indicate that authoritarian parenting within an authoritarian culture does not harm the adolescents' mental health as it does within the Western liberal societies. These results give rise to the hypothesis that inconsistency in parenting and inconsistency between the parenting style and the culture cause harm to adolescents' mental health.

This is a general introduction to the series of three articles that follows. The study intended to examine cross-regional differences concerning parenting styles, adolescent-family connectedness, and mental health in eight Arab societies. Three questionnaires were administered to 2,893 Arab adolescents in eight Arab societies: Parental Authority Questionnaire, Multigenerational Interconnectedness Scale, and Psychological State Scale. The results of the analysis are presented in the following reports. The strength of our study is in the size and diversity of the sample, whereas its limitation is that all the study results are based on adolescents' self-report. To validate our results, more research is needed using other measures such as parents' self-report and observations of parents and adolescents.

The Arab language version of the Parental Authority Questionnaire was administered to 2,893 Arab adolescents in eight Arab societies. Results show that all parenting styles differed across Arab societies. Cluster analysis revealed three combined parenting patterns: inconsistent (permissive and authoritarian), controlling (authoritarian and authoritative), and flexible (authoritative and permissive). The mean score of the authoritarian style was higher among males, whereas the mean score of the authoritative style was higher among females. First-born adolescents reported higher level permissive parenting than other adolescents. The effects of urbanization, parents' education, and the family economic level on parenting were minor.

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Parental control is among the important factors influencing the psychological development of children. In addition to other questionnaires, a questionnaire of father and mother control was administered to adolescents in nine countries. The results showed that parental control differs across cultures. Parental control was higher in the eastern than western countries. Mothers, particularly in the west, are more controlling than fathers. Fathers' rather than mothers' control was associated with adolescents' psychological disorders in the west, but not in the east. Inconsistent parental control was associated with psychological disorders.