State Mindfulness and the Red Bull Effect

Data have shown that participants primed with images of a can of the drink Red Bull tend to show an increase in risk taking activities, such as increased recklessness (Brasel & Gips, 2011). Mindfulness-induction has been shown to increase attention and awareness (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Lueke & Gibson, 2015, 2016) and increased levels of attention and awareness have been shown to greatly decrease automaticity (Chambers, Low, & Alan, 2008; Kang, Gruber, & Gray, 2013). Decreasing automaticity should disrupt the increase in negative primed behaviors such as risk-taking. In the present set of experiments, however, priming participants with Red Bull did not lead them to a higher association of self with risky self-concepts, nor did the Red Bull primed participants display an increase in any of the negative (i.e., risk-taking) and aggressive behaviors that were measured. Also, state mindfulness did not decrease any negative behaviors compared to the control group.