Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 6, 2026

Assessing the Effects of Music Listening on Psychobiological Stress in Daily Life
Published on: February 2, 2017
Drinking and stress: an examination of sex and stressor differences using IVR-based daily data
Lynsay A Ayer1, Valerie S Harder, Gail L Rose
1Health Behavior Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont, 1 South Prospect Street, Burlington, VT 05401, USA. lynsay.ayer@uvm.edu
Background:
Research on the relation of stress to alcohol consumption is inconsistent regarding the direction of effects, and this association has been shown to vary by sex and type of stress. We sought to build upon the stress-drinking literature by examining the direction of the stress-drinking association over time as well as sex and stressor differences using daily data.
Method:
246 heavy drinking adults (67% men) aged 21-82 reported daily stress levels and alcohol consumption over 180 days using Interactive Voice Response (IVR). Baseline daily hassles were examined as an alternative measure of stress. Generalized estimating equations (GEEs) were conducted to test the stress-drinking association accounting for alcohol dependency at baseline and sex and stressor type as moderators.
Results:
IVR daily stress predicted increased alcohol consumption the following day, whereas baseline level of daily hassles did not. Examining the opposite direction of effects, IVR ratings of daily alcohol consumption predicted decreased next-day stress. Stress predicted higher alcohol consumption the next day for men but there was no significant association for women. For both sexes, drinking predicted decreased stress the next day, but this effect was stronger for women.
Conclusions:
This study generally supported the drinking to cope and self-medication hypotheses, with findings that increased stress led to increased drinking. The time-varying relation between stress and alcohol appears to be sex- and measure-specific, however. Therefore, interventions targeted at stress management found to be effective for one sex should not be presumed to be applicable to the other.
More Related Videos
07:59Using Practice Testing, Public Speaking, and Source Monitoring to Examine the Influences of Learning Strategies and Stress on Episodic Memory
Published on: June 14, 2019
05:40The Motivation for Alcohol Reward: Predictors of Progressive-Ratio Intravenous Alcohol Self-Administration in Humans
Published on: April 28, 2022
Related Concept Videos
Psychological Responses to Stress
Introduction to Stress and Lifestyle
Components of Stress
Interestingly, the hidden cube faces also experience these stresses, equal and opposite to those on the...
Stress Prevention and Stress Management Techniques IV
Stress Concentrations
Stress Concentrations
The stress concentration...