of this study was the time-locked nature of the mediation tested in these analyses. Although stress and craving were measured simultaneously, others have found that end-of-day stress reports were comparable to stressful events reported at the moment that the event occurred (Preston et al., 2018b). Furthermore, how the participants were asked to respond (i.e., stressful events earlier in the day, craving right now) lend confidence to the temporal sequencing of the predictor and mediator. More importantly, considering a prospective future outcome of next-day drinking also supports temporal sequential testing of the effects of stress and craving on the next-day drinking outcome assessed daily across 14 days in Study 1 and daily over an 8-week period in Study 2.
