Analysis of the god image through autobiographical memories of college students who lost a parent

The God image refering the individual implications of the term godhead, bears the traces of primary experiences with the God. This study researches how people represent the God and whether people employ their God image as a religious coping activity through their autobiographical memories about the God. Also it is aimed at identifying the reasons for recalling these memories in terms of the functions of autobiographical memory. The research sample consist of believing college students who lost a parent as a traumatic experience, because losing a loved one leads people to think metaphysical issues like death, life, existence, eternity and enables people to experience the God more closely. Interviewing technique as a qualitative research method was employed and participants were specified through criterion, snowball, maximum variation sampling from purposive sampling methods. Then, 12 college students losing their fathers and 8 college studens losing their mothers, total of 20 college students were interviewed. Recorded interviews were evaluated by content analysis which provides multiple interpretation of similer cases. As a result, properties of the God like Close, Merciful, Protecter, Creator-All Mighty, Rule Maker-Just, Giving Patience became prominent, respectively. Also it was reveled that participants had an intervening and comforting God image functioning as a religious coping activity at the hard times and that Merciful or Tormenting-Fearful God image prevailed when making a mistake. Regarding the functions of shared autobiographical memories, it was identified participants mostly recalled the memories about the God with the purpose of directing their behavior or advising other people.