Rumination Mediates and Moderates the Relationship between Bullying Victimization and Depressive Symptoms in Chinese Early Adolescents

Being bullied has been recognized as a risk factor for depression in youth. However, our knowledge about the mechanisms by which bullying victimization is linked with depression remains limited. The present study examined whether rumination, a negative thought process, would mediate or moderate this link. We further simultaneously investigated two types of bullying victimization as the predictors of depression, namely traditional bullying victimization and cyberbullying victimization. A convenience sample of 512 Chinese early adolescents (43.4% girls; M-age = 12.67) participated in this survey. They completed a paper-pencil questionnaire measuring their traditional bullying victimization, cyberbullying victimization, rumination, and depressive symptoms. Bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals were used to test for the mediation effects. Results indicated that rumination mediated and moderated the relationships between traditional bullying/cyberbullying victimization and depressive symptoms. Both types of bullying victimization were positively associated with rumination, which in turn was positively associated with depressive symptoms. In addition, the positive relations between two types of bullying victimization and depressive symptoms were significant only among adolescents with high levels of rumination. The present findings extend our knowledge of how rumination functions in the stressor-depression relationship. The preventive and therapeutic efforts on depression in adolescents should directly focus on decreasing their engagement in rumination.