Non-alcoholic beer reduces flexibility of ideas: Randomized control trial study in Japan

Abstract

This study examined whether non-alcoholic beverages enhanced individuals’ creativity. Participants were randomly allocated to either the non-alcoholic drink group or the water group. They completed the pre-session creativity task and then drank non-alcoholic drinks or water during the drinking session. Thereafter, they completed the post-session creativity task. Two experiments were performed in the study. The results of Experiment 1 (non-alcoholic drink: n = 18; water: n = 17), wherein participants had little experience with alcohol consumption and the sample size was small, show that non-alcoholic beverages did not have any effect. The results of Experiment 2, (non-alcoholic beer: n = 68; water: n = 65), which was conducted among participants with a long intake history and a sufficient number of samples (the required sample size was calculated to be 128), showed that flexibility was higher in the water group than in the non-alcoholic beer group. A previous study showed that alcohol consumption reduced flexibility. Therefore, classical conditioning may have caused non-alcoholic beverages to produce a conditioned response of reduced flexibility, a response similar to the effect of alcoholic beverages.