When cognitive emotion regulation is not enough: a process-oriented perspective on school bullying victimization and...

School bullying has been widely recognized as a significant social risk factor for suicidal ideation among university students; however, the psychological processes linking bullying experiences to suicide risk remain insufficiently understood, particularly with respect to the role of cognitive emotion regulation. Using a sample of 600 Korean university students, this study examined the association between school bullying victimization and suicidal ideation and tested whether adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies functioned as mediators in this relationship. Data were collected via self-report questionnaires and analyzed using correlation analysis and regression-based mediation analysis. In addition, voluntarily shared narrative accounts were descriptively reviewed to provide contextual interpretation of the quantitative findings. Results indicated that school bullying victimization was positively and robustly associated with suicidal ideation, and this association remained significant after accounting for cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Bullying victimization was significantly related to both adaptive and maladaptive regulation strategies; however, neither strategy demonstrated a significant association with suicidal ideation, and no mediating effects were supported. Interpretive insights from participants' narratives suggested that, under conditions of chronic and repeated bullying, regulation efforts were often present but progressively undermined, contributing to emotional exhaustion and a narrowing of perceived action possibilities. Together, the findings suggest that the relationship between school bullying victimization and suicidal ideation among Korean university students may be best understood as involving a primarily direct and cumulative process, within which individual-level cognitive emotion regulation strategies may be insufficient on their own to buffer the effects of persistent social adversity. By integrating quantitative analyses with contextualized narrative insights, this study offers a process-oriented lens for understanding bullying-related suicidal ideation.