Psychological Development and Education ›› 2021, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (6): 873-881.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2021.06.14

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The Effect of Victimization on Depressive Symptoms: The Mediating Roles of Sadness Rumination, Anger Rumination and Gender Differences

REN Ping1, WEI Yi1, MENG Xiaozhe1, QIN Xingna1,2, WANG Xuan1   

  1. 1. Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875;
    2. Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Groningen 9712 TS, The Netherlands
  • Published:2021-11-16

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Abstract: To explore the relationship between victimization and depressive symptoms and the role of rumination and gender differences, the bullying questionnaire, the sadness rumination subscale of children's coping style questionnaire, the anger rumination questionnaire and the Children's Depression Inventory were completed by 2,582 middle school students (1,328 boys and 1,254 girls). The results showed first that victimization was positively correlated with sadness rumination, anger rumination and depressive symptoms among adolescents. Second, victimization, sadness rumination and anger rumination significantly predicted the level of depressive symptoms. Moreover, sadness rumination and anger rumination played partial mediating roles in the relationship between victimization and depressive symptoms. Third, the effect of sadness rumination on predicting depressive symptoms in girls was significantly greater than that in boys. This study revealed the mechanism of victimization on depressive symptoms, and provided a reference for cognitive intervention in Chinese adolescent mental health from the perspective of sadness and anger rumination.

Key words: middle school students, victimization, depressive symptoms, sadness rumination, anger rumination, gender difference

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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