Having children affects many aspects of people's lives. However, it remains unclear to what degree the challenges that come along with having children are associated with parents' personality development. We addressed this question in two studies by investigating the relationship between parenting challenges and personality development in mothers of newborns (Study 1, N = 556) and the reciprocal associations between (mastering) parenting challenges and personality development in parents of adolescents (Study 2, N = 548 mothers and 460 fathers). In Study 1, we found the stress of having a newborn baby to be associated with declines in maternal Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability. Parenting challenges were also related to personality development in parents of adolescent children in Study 2, with parent-child conflict being reciprocally associated with decreases in Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability. Mastering parenting challenges in the form of high parenting selfefficacy, on the other hand, was found to be associated with increases in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability, and vice versa. In sum, our results suggest that mastering the challenges associated with the social role of parenthood is one of the mechanisms underlying personality development in young and middle adulthood.

The relationship between personality and well-being is dynamic and therefore should be examined within aging perspective. In study presented here we compared the prediction of well-being from personality in two samples-223 adolescents attending highschool (16-19 years; M = 16.94, SD = 0.51) and 134 older adults (54-90 years; M = 77.20, SD = 7.39) living in retirement home or at home. Different aspects of wellbeing were included in the study. Subjective well-being was measured with Index of WellBeing, but also self-esteem and loneliness were included as measures of psychological well-being. Personality (measured with FFPI; Hendriks et al. in Pers Individ Dif 27:307-325, 1999) significantly predicted indicators of well-being (Self-Esteem, Loneliness and Index of Well-Being) in both samples, with emotional stability and extraversion as most pronounced predictors. Personality explained more variance of well-being in adolescents than in older adults, and more variance in eudaimonic than hedonic aspects of well-being.

In the twenty years since the first theory of 'plant blindness' was published much discussion has ensued concerning this phenomenon. More recent research, not only demonstrates that humans appear to favour animals over plants but also indicates a preference for mammals with forward-facing eyes. For this paper, we analysed answers to an online survey conducted with 202 student primary teachers in Sweden collected over a period of two years. We focus on two open-ended questions concerning favourite plant and animal choices and motivations for these choices. Our intention in this study was not to contrast animal vs. plant, but rather to further explore differential appreciation of plants and animals. Our findings suggest that there are large variations regarding relationships with plants and that affective connections with plant-life are translated through expressions of beauty, symbolic meaning, emotions (life-long) memories, colour, smell and size, and that similar characteristics seem to attract humans to animals. Our resultsin line with arguments presented in recent studiesstrongly suggest that in biological education and conservation contexts we should rely more intentionally on cultural and personal factors, utilise pre-existing experiencebased human-plant bonds, and in so doing reinforce human recognition and appreciation of plants.

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The study explored changes in parent-adolescent school-related conflict rate and academic performance over a 5-year period among Croatian early adolescents and gender differences in these changes. Furthermore, it examined the relationship between conflict and achievement. The study was performed by applying an accelerated approach to overlapping cohort design in which 851 adolescents (51.4% girls) and 1,288 parents (53.9% mothers) participated. The data were collected three times, approximately 1 year apart. Parallel forms of the Parent-Adolescent Conflict Scale were administered to measure parent-adolescent conflict rate in different dyads and from different informants. The results of the multilevel modeling showed an overall increase in parent-adolescent school-related conflict rate and a decrease in academic achievement. According to parental reports, conflict