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Depression and Gender Differences 291the development of hopelessness through two mechanisms and, in particular, byproviding positive or “adaptive” inferential feedback (IF) that promotes benigninferences about the causes, consequences, and meaning of negative events, ratherthan depressogenic ones. In contrast, negative or maladaptive IF from others shouldpromote depressogenic inferences. For example, a person may express the followingdepressogenic inference to a close friend: “Now, I’ll never get promoted;I am so stupid, I always foul things up.” The friend could offer an adaptive inferentialalternative, e.g., “She will forget about it in no time, and you will still bepromoted because most of your work is really good. You are not stupid; your bossis just very difficult to get along with, and you are doing better at it all the time,”that would lead the affected individual to reevaluate her thinking, thereby modifyingthe original maladaptive inference or at least decreasing its certainty andthereby the likelihood of hopelessness.Consistent with prediction, Panzarella et al. found that high levels of adaptiveIF prospectively predicted less negative inferences for actual stressful events experiencedand less negative inferential styles during the follow-up. Moreover,participants who were HR, who experienced a high number of stressful events,and who had more negative IF from others were more likely to become hopelessand depressed than participants with 0, 1, or 2 of these vulnerability factors (Risk× Stress × IF interaction). In addition, in an experimental design, we found thatparticipants whose partners were taught to deliver positive IF showed reduced depressivesymptoms and inferences following a laboratory failure compared to participantswhose partners provided general or no social support (Dobkin, Panzarella,Nesbitt, & Alloy, 2004).What are the developmental origins of cognitive vulnerability to depression?We highlight the most relevant developmental findings from the CVD Project here(but see Alloy et al., 2004, for a detailed review; see also the bottom left portionof figure 13-1).In an examination of the familial origins of negative cognitive styles, Abramsonet al. (2006) found that HR participants’ mothers had greater lifetime histories ofdepression than LR participants’ mothers (35% vs. 18%) based both on directinterviews of mothers and offspring reports. HR participants’ fathers were marginallymore likely to have a history of depression than LR participants’ fathers(18% vs. 12%) based on offspring report only.Individuals may develop negative cognitive styles through a variety of familialsocialization practices. If modeling of parents’ styles is a contributor to the developmentof cognitive vulnerability to depression, then offspring’s cognitive stylesshould correlate with those of their parents. In addition to modeling, the inferentialfeedback (IF) parents provide to their children about causes and consequencesof negative events in the child’s life may contribute to the child’s cognitive riskfor depression, such that offspring’s cognitive styles will be associated with theirparents’ IF styles. Finally, negative parenting practices, such as “affectionless