Attachment and Spiritual Maturity 72
have on society. God's avenue to reach the unsaved and influence society at large is
through the church. The extent of impact the church could have on society in moral values, social justice, services it gives, and the truth that prevails is partially dependent on the relational maturity that comes from secure attachments that people are experiencing within the church community. Limitations of the Study This study has a number of limitations. The discussion will center around those relating to the design of the study, the instruments used, and the sampling. Some of the
limitations of this study also present areas that need to be addressed in future research.
The most obvious limitation of this study is in the convenience sample of
seminary students selected. This sample represents a sample population that has not
been frequently explored in this area of research An important task for future research is to attempt to replicate the design using other seminaries. A random sample should also be measured in order to increase the generaliz.ation of the results. The results of this study are also limited in that self-report measures were used exclusively. Retrospective reporting was relied on for measures of childhood attachment and personal perception of adult attachment and spiritual maturity. This may be seen in the comparison analysis between the two childhood measures when 17 students who reported neglectful parenting on the PBI were in the secure category of the Haz.an and Shaver measure. Therefore, the current design does not account for the degree to which
participants gave answers they felt were expected, as opposed to what they actually
experienced The gender bias ofthe sample is another important limitation. Only 77 out of 216 students were females representing about 36% of the present sample. A One-Way Analysis ofVariance of gender on each variable was computed. Noteworthy differences
in the results were not found. Replication of the study with a larger sample of females
remains an important task for future research.
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