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Distinguishing between the effects of nature and nurture constitutes a major research goal for those interested in understanding human development. It is known, for example, that many parent traits predict mental health outcomes in children, but the causal processes underlying such associations are often unclear. Family‐based quasi‐experimental designs such as sibling comparison, adoption and extended family studies have been used for decades to distinguish the genetic transmission of risk from the environmental effects family members potentially have on one another. Recently, these designs have been combined with genomic data, and this combination is fuelling a range of exciting methodological advances. In this review we explore these advances – highlighting the ways in which they have been applied to date and considering what they are likely to teach us in the coming years about the aetiology and intergenerational transmission of psychopathology.
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