Tipping… are they playing us?!
I spent a bit of time today listening to a podcast done by our favorite Psych Files creator, Michael Britt. The discussion in this podcast was about Tipping and what experiments and research has learned about the “psychology of tipping” and ways customers can be manipulated to tip better. Who knew!?
I wonder, then, if waiters and waitress staff actually research this for themselves – do a little google exploring about “ways to get better tips” or whether psychologists have just been curious about this and wrote the evidence only for we customers to fight against these same manipulations? It’s relevant information, but who is the intended audience? lol
I dated a former chef for quite a while and he was ever-so consistent in his tipping – he’d give as much as 30% to the wait staff when the meal or service, itself, wasn’t even that grand! We even went to a very fancy restaurant in Saskatoon, the Samarai where they cook your food in front of you and you’re sitting around the grill. We waited more tan 40 minutes to them to even begin to cook our food, and then I got all my rice and cooked vegtables first and was done eating that before he even put the chicken on my plate! It was awful! It happened to be a pretty special anniversary for us, too, so it was especially disappointing when we’d planned to enjoy a nice night out but sat there trying to not show our annoyance. Awkward. When we went to leave, I mentioned to the cashier how sad our service was and they were very appologetic. They only charged us half the check… but my boyfriend still left a 20% tip. He tipped them! That awful service?! Excuse me?! lol
So why? Why do people tip, really. Do you ever give money because you feel you’re obligated? Do you wonder why you sometimes give more to one waiter/waitress than another? Be wary because they may be playing subtle games to motivate you in leaving more for them.
Here are some ways Michael explains can improve tipping by customers:
- If you can improve the mood of your customer, they’ll likely tip better. They did an experiment where people were given a card with their bill – one card had a business event advertised on it and the other had a joke. In the experiment, the waitress randomly chose a card and gave it to the customers, unaware of which of the two cards she gave. The research proved that the people who were given the joke card tipped above 20% while the people who received the business card tipped around 15%. Interesting study.
- They’ve also tested to see whether body language and crouching down to be eye-level with your customer can increase tip amounts. Michael interviewed two people in the waiting profession who
both disagreed with the idea of crouching to speak to customers. They both said it affected the balance of power and gave the impression that they were not in a hurry. - Another strategy is to do something to remind people of credit cards. If you can give them their check and have a visual image of a credit card, people seem to feel comfortable giving a more general tip because they were reminded that they could just charge their meal instead of being limited (tip wise) with what cash they had on hand.
- Repeating the customer’s order back to them after they’ve ordered – the tip was higher.
- Even the decision to draw a “sun” as opposed to drawing a “smiley face” on the bottom a check seems to improve tipping. “Good weather has a positive affect on tipping” and reminding people of good weather seemed to have the same effect.
- The most interesting of the studies was on the idea of “touching” a customer gentle to generate a greater tip. They found that women who were touched by an “attractive” waitress give more generously, as long as that same attractive waitress does “not” gently touch the male customer with her! lol That makes sense to me!
So when you’re out at a restaurant and ready to pay the bill… be wary of these types of trickery, unless you’re fully willing to give and give generously. OR you could play a little game of your own and draw a happy face on the tip line of the check and leave them nothing! See if they get the “warm fuzzies inside”. lol
I added this video because we watched his video on Research Methods and it was pretty great, but it doesn’t specifically address the social psychology of tipping. He’s just got a great video. lol
