Just about every personality trait with a name has a high degree of genetic heritability. We know this from e.g. studies of identical versus fraternal twins. An

Just about every personality trait with a name has a high degree of genetic heritability. We know this from e.g. studies of identical versus fraternal twins. And people abused as children tend to be closely related to their parents; we know this because we know where babies come from. So, how much of the “chain of abuse” thing is just genetic confounding? I don’t know, which is vexing. As far as I can tell, very few of the chain-of-abuse theorists even think of genetics, even though it’s the elephant in the room, and many are hard-line blank slate believers. (I don’t have citations at the moment, but last time I looked at the relevant academic literature it was, broadly speaking, an absolute dumpster fire.)