Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
JOURNAL OF SAKARYA UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF THEOLOGY (SAUIFD), cilt.28, sa.1, ss.242-262, 2026 (ESCI)
The family is the primary structure that lays the foundation for both personality and religious development, as it represents the first and most influential social environment encountered by the child. Parental attitudes refer to behaviors exhibited during child-rearing and have been widely studied in relation to personality development and religious schemas in the literature. Given the increasing concern over narcissism, understanding its relationship with parenting styles and religious concepts is important for effective religious education. In this context, our study aims to explore the relationships between perceived parental attitudes, narcissism, and perceptions of God. The study was conducted with 503 students from the Faculty of Theology and employed a quantitative correlational research design. The findings indicate that parental attitudes are significantly associated with both personality characteristics and God representations. One of the notable findings of the study is that paternal rejection and overprotective attitudes were found to be positively and significantly related to grandiose narcissism, whereas no significant relationship emerged between perceived maternal attitudes and grandiose narcissism. Another significant finding indicates that higher levels of narcissism were associated with more punitive perceptions of God and lower levels of positive God representations. In terms of gender, male students demonstrated higher levels of grandiose narcissism and negative God perception compared to female students, while narcissistic tendencies were found to decrease with increasing age. Overall, the study suggests that religious cognition is closely linked to early relational experiences, highlighting the importance of considering individual relational schemas in both theological education and family relationships.