Do negative cognitive styles provide similar vulnerability to first onsets versus recurrences of depressive disorders, and are these associations specific to depression? The authors followed for 2.5 years prospectively college freshmen (N = 347) with no initial psychiatric disorders at high-risk (HR) versus low-risk (LR) for depression on the basis of their cognitive styles. HR participants had odds of major, minor, and hopelessness depression that were 3.5-6.8 times greater than the odds for LR individuals. Negative cognitive styles were similarly predictive of first onsets and recurrences of major depression and hopelessness depression but predicted first onsets of minor depression more strongly than recurrences. The risk groups did not differ in incidence of anxiety disorders not comorbid with depression or other disorders, but HR participants were more likely to have an onset of anxiety comorbid with depression.

The inverse relationship between social support and depression has been robust to a wide variety of conceptual replications with college, community, and clinical samples. However, there is inadequate understanding of the mechanisms by which social support protects against depression. In this paper, we define a subtype of social support, adaptive inferential feedback, which is more precise than the general concept of social support. We elaborate two possible mechanisms for the beneficial effect of adaptive inferential feedback on depression by incorporating this type of social support into a specific etiological model of depression, the Hopelessness Theory of depression. Empirical tests are conducted for the two hypothesized mechanisms by which adaptive inferential feedback protects against depression as well as the full expanded Hopelessness Theory proposed herein. Our results supported both the specific mechanisms proposed as well as the full expanded hopelessness theory. We found that adaptive inferential feedback predicts more positive inferences for stressful events and a more positive inferential style prospectively. It also interacts with cognitive risk and stress to predict future hopelessness and depressive symptoms as well as concurrent diagnoses of hopelessness depression over and above the contributions of stress, cognitive risk, and general social support which are known predictors of depressive symptoms and disorders. Thus, this newly defined subtype of social support may be an important contributor in the etiology of hopelessness depression.

According to the cognitive vulnerability hypothesis of two major cognitive theories of depression, Beck’s (1967; 1987) theory and the hopelessness theory (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989), negative cognitive styles provide vulnerability to depression, particularly hopelessness depression (HD), when people encounter negative life events. The Temple-Wisconsin Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression (CVD) Project is a two-site, prospective longitudinal study designed to test this hypothesis as well as the other etiological hypotheses of Beck’s and the hopelessness theories of depression. We present findings from the CVD Project suggesting that the hypothesized depressogenic cognitive styles do indeed confer vulnerability for clinically significant depressive disorders and suicidality. In addition, we present evidence about the information processing and personality correlates of these styles. Finally, we discuss preliminary findings about the developmental origins of cognitive vulnerability to depression.

Data from a prospective longitudinal study were used to investigate whether hopelessness mediates the association between social support and depression, as hypothesized by L. Y. Abramson, G. I. Metalsky, and L. B. Alloy (1989). Measures of hopelessness, social support, and depression were administered to 103 HIV-infected men and readministered 6 months later. Findings indicated that low baseline social support predicted increases in hopelessness and depression. Increases in hopelessness predicted increases in depression after controlling for baseline social support. Low baseline social support did not predict increased depression when hopelessness was controlled statistically.

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