It’s Not Just a Joke: The Association Between Ambiguous Perceived Hostility and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent Bullying Victims

While the association between bullying victimization and adolescent depression is well established, the social cognitive mechanisms that shape this relationship remain insufficiently examined. Prior research has focused largely on behavioral frequency and has often overlooked how victims interpret the perpetrator’s intent. Drawing on Cognitive Appraisal Theory, this study investigates how different levels of perceived hostility, ranging from “just joking” to “always mean”, together with perceived power imbalance, predict depressive symptoms. Data were collected from a large mental health survey of 4,970 adolescents in grades 5 to 12 in an eastern county, China. Participants completed the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire and the Patient Health Questionnaire. Perceived hostility was grouped into four levels: none, mild (“just joking”), ambiguous (“sometimes joking, sometimes mean”), and extreme (“always mean”). Logistic regression analyses indicated a nonlinear ambiguity effect. Ambiguous hostility showed the strongest association with depression (OR = 1.73, p < 0.001), whereas extreme hostility was not statistically significant in fully adjusted models (OR = 1.35, p = 0.056). Gender stratified analyses revealed divergent vulnerability patterns. Female students were more sensitive to mild hostility framed as joking (OR = 1.58), whereas male students showed the highest risk when facing ambiguous hostility (OR = 1.94). After accounting for perceived hostility, perceived power imbalance did not directly predict depression. This pattern raises question about existing assumptions that more overt aggression necessarily leads to greater psychological harm. Instead, they suggest that interpretive uncertainty, reflected in the cognitive effort needed to judge unclear intent, is a significant correlate of depression among adolescents in non-Western contexts. Interventions should focus on helping adolescents navigate social ambiguity and on addressing gender specific attribution tendencies.