Investigating the Relationship between Students' Personality Traits in Single-Child, Two-Child and Multiple-Child Families with Parent-Child Relationship

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality characteristics of single-parent, two-parent and multi-parent families with their parent-child relationship in Sari. In a correlational study, 324 high school male and female high school students in Sari were selected by simple random sampling and completed the NEO 5-Factor Personality Questionnaire and Parent-Child Relationship Questionnaire (PCRS). The data was analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive statistics and linear regression. The results showed that personality traits explained 49.5% variance of father-child relationship in single-parent families, 25.4% variance of father -child relationship in two-child families and 26.3% variance of father -child relationship in multi-child families (p < 0.01). Furthermore, the results indicated that personality traits explained 20.8 % variance of mother-child relationship in single-parent families, 36.9% variance of mother-child relationship in two-child families and 32.7% variance of mother-child relationship in multi-child families (p < 0.01).  Therefore, personality traits of students are effective in explaining the parent-child relationship of families.