ERIC Number: EJ1474598
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jun
Pages: 25
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0143-0343
EISSN: EISSN-1461-7374
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Relationship between Bullying Victimization and Depressive Symptoms among Early Adolescents in Rural China: Exploring the Overgeneralization of Social Distrust in Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Designs
Chun Chen1; Yulu Zhang1; Rongrong Xu2; Jiaowei Gong3; Shane Jimerson4; Yingquan Song2
School Psychology International, v46 n3 p293-317 2025
This study investigated the underlying mechanism between bullying victimization and depressive symptoms via social trust cross-sectionally and longitudinally among 4,548 early adolescents at T1 and 4,484 adolescents at T2 from rural areas in Guizhou, China. Correlational data showed that all forms of bullying victimization at T1 showed negative correlations with in-group trust at T1 and T2 and generalized trust and depressive symptoms at T1. Both forms of trust were negatively associated with depressive symptoms at both time points. Results of structural equation modeling revealed a significant cross-sectional relationship between T1 bullying victimization and T1 depressive symptoms and that T1 bullying victimization was indirectly related to T1 depressive symptoms through both in-group and generalized social trust at T1. Thus, among students who reported experiencing more bullying, there was a lower level of trust in familiar people and authorities, which mediated their reports of depression. However, social trust did not explain the nonsignificant longitudinal relationship between bullying victimization at T1 and depressive symptoms at T2, potentially due to the lack of control of confounding variables. One implication is the importance of immediate intervention to counteract the tendency to overgeneralize bullying victimization to overall social trust. This study contributes to an empirical understanding of the underlying mechanism between bullying victimization and psychopathology symptoms among early adolescents in rural China.
Descriptors: Bullying, Victims, Depression (Psychology), Symptoms (Individual Disorders), Early Adolescents, Rural Areas, Foreign Countries, Trust (Psychology), Structural Equation Models, Intervention, Psychopathology, Social Capital
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1School of Humanities and Social Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China; 2Graduate School of Education & China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University, Beijing, China; 3School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China; 4Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA