And the first thing you learn in either Psychology or Statistics is that Correlational Studies CANNOT be used to establish cause-effect relationships.
True. Even if the correlation is valid, i.e., repeatable, representative of a true correlation, it doesn’t mean cause and effect. The first thing that occured to me was that parents who are lazy and indulgent get poor results.
It’s what’s known in statistics as colinearity. Many traits may be associated.