Maybe I missed it but the article doesn’t appear to control for genetics. This is crucial because:
1. Dysfunctional reward processing in parents plausibly causes early life adversity in their children, and
2. Dysfunctional reward processing, like practically every other mental trait, is to some degree heritable.
Without controlling for genetics it would be impossible to distinguish the effect of early life adversity from the effect of being the child of the type of parent who creates an environment of early life adversity.
I think it’s plausible that shared environment plays a role, but papers that don’t even try to address genetic confounding aren’t serious.
1. Dysfunctional reward processing in parents plausibly causes early life adversity in their children, and
2. Dysfunctional reward processing, like practically every other mental trait, is to some degree heritable.
Without controlling for genetics it would be impossible to distinguish the effect of early life adversity from the effect of being the child of the type of parent who creates an environment of early life adversity.
I think it’s plausible that shared environment plays a role, but papers that don’t even try to address genetic confounding aren’t serious.