In a groundbreaking study published in BMC Psychiatry, researchers have unveiled compelling evidence linking the trajectories of bullying victimization in adolescents to the development of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD), highlighting impaired resilience as a crucial mediatory mechanism. This three-wave longitudinal investigation, involving over twenty thousand Chinese adolescents, is the first of its kind to dissect the nuanced temporal patterns of bullying and their psychological repercussions on gaming addiction, underscoring the complexity of behavioral disorders in youth.
Bullying victimization has long been recognized as a potent risk factor for various psychological disorders, yet the longitudinal dynamics of how different patterns of bullying exposure influence addictions like IGD remain underexplored. This study innovatively utilized Growth Mixture Modeling (GMM) to classify adolescents into distinct victimization trajectories over time, moving beyond simplistic one-time victimization snapshots to capture evolving patterns of harm. Such a sophisticated statistical approach allows for a deeper understanding of how persistent or changing bullying experiences uniquely contribute to mental health outcomes.
The study’s cohort began with 20,137 Chinese adolescents, monitored across three separate time points, enabling researchers to draw robust conclusions about the progression of bullying victimization and its impact on internet gaming behaviors. Standardized instruments were employed, including the Multidimensional Peer-Victimization Scale for bullying assessment, the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale – Short Form to evaluate IGD, and the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale to gauge psychological resilience. The combination of these validated tools imbues the study with methodological rigor rarely seen in large-scale behavioral research.
Through GMM analysis, the researchers identified four salient bullying victimization trajectories: low-risk (77.8%), chronic (9.1%), remitting (9.9%), and escalating (3.2%). This categorization illuminates a spectrum from stable low exposure to persistent and worsening victimization. The study found that adolescents in the chronic and escalating victimization groups exhibited dramatically increased odds of developing IGD by the third wave of data collection, with adjusted odds ratios of 4.23 and a striking 10.56, respectively. These statistics punctuate the grave long-term risks associated with sustained or worsening peer bullying.
Intriguingly, the remitting group—those who experienced early victimization that decreased over the study period—did not show a significant rise in IGD risk relative to the low-risk group. This critical finding suggests that cessation or reduction of bullying exposure can mitigate long-term addictive behaviors, offering urgent implications for intervention timing and focus. The differentiation among trajectories thus refines our understanding of victimization’s psychological sequelae, moving toward targeted mental health strategies.
Central to these dynamics is the mediating role of resilience — a multifaceted construct encompassing emotional, cognitive, and social adaptability. The study deployed a bootstrapped mediation analysis demonstrating that impaired resilience significantly mediated the increased risk of IGD for the chronic and escalating bullying trajectories, with effect sizes indicating strong indirect pathways. In contrast, resilience did not mediate the non-significant IGD risk in the remitting group, emphasizing resilience as a dynamic buffer against addictive outcomes in persistently victimized adolescents.
Resilience impairment emerged as a pivotal psychological mechanism through which prolonged bullying exposure predisposes youth to excessive internet gaming. This underscores the importance of resilience-enhancing interventions as preventive mental health measures. Techniques such as cognitive-behavioral approaches, social skills training, and family support could fortify coping capacities, reducing the vulnerability of at-risk adolescents to IGD and potentially other comorbid disorders.
This research’s longitudinal design, encompassing a vast adolescent population, lends unprecedented statistical power to detect subtle but meaningful longitudinal patterns. Such large cohort studies are invaluable for capturing developmental processes in psychological disorders, moving beyond cross-sectional snapshots that often obscure causality and temporal order. The three-wave follow-up allowed for the observation of victimization changes and their cumulative psychological impact.
From a public health perspective, these findings signal a call to action for educators, clinicians, and policy makers. Early identification of chronic and escalating bullies and victims should become a cornerstone of school-based mental health programs. Moreover, systematic resilience training and psychosocial support measures could act as prophylactic shields against the burgeoning global crisis of behavioral addictions in adolescents.
The nuances uncovered here also suggest that not all bullying experiences inexorably lead to gaming addiction; instead, the timing, chronicity, and psychological response to victimization critically shape outcomes. Such insights advocate for precision mental health—an approach tailoring prevention and treatment interventions to individual risk trajectories and psychological profiles, maximizing efficacy by leveraging longitudinal psychosocial data.
Furthermore, the remarkably high odds ratios for IGD in the escalating group emphasize how rapidly worsening peer victimization can amplify risk, signaling urgent windows for intervention before compounding psychological harms entrench addictive behaviors. These trajectories provide actionable biomarkers for clinical and educational stakeholders to prioritize resources.
Scientific focus on IGD has intensified in recent years, due to its rising prevalence and inclusion of gaming disorder in diagnostic manuals. However, understanding its psychosocial antecedents remains fragmentary. This study contributes a cohesive model detailing how exposure to peer victimization disrupts resilience systems, paving the way to IGD. Such mechanistic clarity enhances our capacity to design mechanistically informed treatment modalities.
Finally, this research enriches the global discourse on adolescent mental health by elucidating culturally relevant patterns within Chinese youth, where academic pressures and social dynamics interplay uniquely with internet use. While longitudinal research is resource-intensive, its rewards include nuanced risk stratification and dynamic intervention frameworks that shorter studies cannot provide, making it a benchmark for future investigations.
In conclusion, the identification of discrete bullying victimization trajectories and their differential impact on internet gaming addiction mediated by resilience advances the field’s understanding of adolescent behavioral disorders. This evidence advocates for continual monitoring of victimization patterns and the implementation of resilience-building strategies as essential components of early prevention frameworks. Tackling peer victimization not only curtails immediate harm but may also thwart the cascade into addictive disorders, ultimately safeguarding adolescent mental health in a digitally connected era.
Subject of Research: The longitudinal impact of bullying victimization trajectories on Internet Gaming Disorder and the mediating role of psychological resilience among Chinese adolescents.
Article Title: The effect of bullying victimization trajectory on internet gaming disorder and the mediating role of impaired resilience: a three-wave cohort study among Chinese adolescents.
Article References:
Peng, P., Chen, Z., Ren, S. et al. The effect of bullying victimization trajectory on internet gaming disorder and the mediating role of impaired resilience: a three-wave cohort study among Chinese adolescents. BMC Psychiatry (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-025-07641-2
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