Longitudinal Associations between Cyberbullying Victimization, Mindfulness, Depression, and Anxiety: A Mediation Analysis

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediational role of mindfulness in the linkage between cyberbullying victimization and depression and anxiety among Chinese adolescents in longitudinal data. A total of 1274 Chinese high school students completed the measures at Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2). Adolescents’ self-reports of cyberbullying victimization, mindfulness, depression, and anxiety were used in the analyses. The results showed that our model fit the data well and revealed that mindfulness partially mediated the relationship between cyberbullying victimization and depression and anxiety. This study highlights the potential key role of mindfulness in the relationship between the experience of being cyberbullied with both depressive and anxious symptoms.

KEYWORDS:

• Cyberbullying victimization
• mindfulness
• depression
• anxiety
• adolescents

Acknowledgments

Caimeng Liu, Zhen Liu, and Guangzhe Yuan contributed equally to this article.

Disclosure of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical standards and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation [Nanjing Normal University, P. R. China] and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported by a grant from the Sichuan Philosophy and Social Science Project Foundation of China (SC20B025) to Caimeng Liu, Co-Principal Investigator.