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290 EFFECTS OF STRESSrumination hypothesis and suggested that cognitively HR individuals who tendto ruminate on their negative cognitions when stressful life events occur (stressreactiverumination, SRR), and thereby recursively activate their negative cognitions,would be more likely to become depressed. Consistent with this proposedextension, HR participants who were also high in SRR were more likely to havea past history and prospective onsets of MD and HD than were HR participantslow in SRR or LR participants regardless of their SRR (Alloy et al., 2000; Robinson& Alloy, 2003). These findings indicate that rumination may act as both a mediatorand moderator of cognitive vulnerability.In the cognitive vulnerability-transactional stress model, negative cognitivestyles are hypothesized to confer vulnerability to depression when individualsconfront negative life events and this Vulnerability × Stress interaction should bemediated by hopelessness. In studies of depressive symptoms, we found that negativecognitive styles interacted with negative life events to predict prospectiveincreases in depressive symptoms, mediated by hopelessness (Alloy & Clements,1998; Alloy, Just, & Panzarella, 1997; Metalsky, Joiner, Hardin, & Abramson,1993). In addition, we found that HR participants who experienced high stresswere about 2.5 times more likely to have an onset of MD/MiD and HD, mediatedby hopelessness, than HR participants who experienced low stress or LR participantsregardless of stress. We also tested the transactional part (stress-generationhypothesis) of the cognitive vulnerability-transactional stress model, which suggeststhat cognitively vulnerable participants generate stressful events in their lives.Safford, Alloy, Abramson, and Crossfield (in press) found that, controlling forcurrent and past depression, HR participants, especially females, generated morecontrollable events dependent on their behavior, thereby increasing the likelihoodthat their vulnerability will be translated into depression. Thus, cognitively vulnerableindividuals experience more negative events and then interpret them morenegatively as well (i.e., a “two-hit” model).In addition, according to the cognitive vulnerability-stress model, people withnegative cognitive styles are vulnerable to depression in part because they tendto engage in negatively toned information processing about themselves whenthey encounter stressful events. Accordingly, Alloy et al. (1997) found that relativeto LR participants, HR participants showed preferential processing of selfreferentnegative depression-relevant information (e.g., faster processing andbetter recall of content involving themes of incompetence, worthlessness, andlow motivation). These findings provide converging evidence for informationprocessing effects of cognitive styles on laboratory tasks adapted from cognitivescience paradigms and, thus, support the construct validity of the cognitivestyle questionnaire measures.Much evidence indicates that social support buffers against depression whenpeople experience stress (Cohen & Wills, 1985). Panzarella, Alloy, and Whitehouse(2006) hypothesized that social support buffers against depression by preventing