Everyday stressor exposure and diversity in individuals who smoke cigarettes daily: associations with craving, negative affect, and smoking

Everyday stressor exposure is a dynamic, high-risk event that increases the likelihood of smoking lapses. Stressor diversity quantifies between-person differences in how everyday stressors are dispersed across multiple domains (e.g., financial stressors, health stressors). There are two competing perspectives on the implications of stressor diversity for how affect and behavior respond to stressor exposure (i.e., stressor reactivity). A chronicity of stressor perspective predicts that low stressor diversity would be associated with higher stressor reactivity. By contrast, an uncertainty of stressor perspective predicts that high stressor diversity would be associated with higher stressor reactivity. Using ecological momentary assessment data in 171 individuals who smoke cigarettes daily (mean age = 49.43, SD = 11.22; 59.6% women; 64.3% Black/African American), we tested the extent to which stressor diversity moderated the within-person associations between stressor exposure and negative affect, craving, and smoking. Results indicated that stressor-reactivity was greater for those with higher levels of stressor diversity. These findings support the uncertainty of stressors perspective on stressor diversity, suggesting that individuals with higher stressor diversity will have greater stressor-reactivity and struggle to proactively cope with stressors because of the unpredictable nature about which stressor will emerge next.