Black‐White Differences in Tipping of Various Service Providers1

Data from a national telephone survey revealed 4 general patterns in the tipping behaviors of Blacks and Whites. First, Blacks appear more likely than Whites to stiff commonly encountered service providers, but not less commonly encountered ones. Second, Blacks appear more likely than Whites to leave flat tip amounts to service providers who are commonly tipped a percentage of the bill, but not to service providers who are more rarely tipped a percentage of the bill. Third, Black percentage tippers leave a smaller average percentage of the bill than do White percentage tippers across many service contexts. Finally, Black flat tippers leave larger average dollar tips than do White flat tippers across many service contexts. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed briefly.     

The Effect of Server Posture on the Tips of Whites and Blacks

This study examined the effects on tips left by Black and White restaurant patrons of having a White waitress sit down or lean over at the table during the service encounter. A significant server posture by patron race interaction was obtained. Sitting at the table significantly increased the tips left by White patrons and marginally significantly decreased the tips left by Black patrons. Potential explanations for this interaction are discussed along with its practical implications.     

Is the Customer Always Right? The Potential for Racial Bias in Customer Evaluations of Employee Performance

With the encouragement of marketing scholars, many companies are tying employee incentives to customer ratings of satisfaction, service quality, or employee performance. One potential drawback to these practices is that customers' evaluations of employees—and, therefore, any associated rewards—may be biased by employee race. This possibility was examined in a restaurant setting. We found that customers rated the promptness and attentiveness of same race servers more favorably than different race servers, but there were no differences for assessments of server friendliness or appearance. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Effect of Server Introduction on Restaurant Tipping1

The effect of a server introducing herself by name on restaurant tipping was investigated. Forty-two, 2-person dining parties were randomly assigned to either a name or a no name introduction condition. The use of a buffet brunch reduced contact between server and diners and held bill size constant. Results indicated that having the server introduce herself by name resulted in a significantly higher tipping rate (23.4%) than when the server did not introduce herself by name (15.0%), p < .001. Tipping rate also was affected by method of payment, with diners who charged the meal having a higher rate (22.6%) than those paying cash (15.9%), p < .001. The findings suggest the importance of initial server-diner interactions. Possible alternative explanations and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Tipping Motivations and Behavior in the U.S. and Israel

Tipping is a multibillion dollar phenomenon and a major source of income for millions of workers. The results of a study conducted in the U.S. and Israel suggest that people tip mainly to show gratitude, conform to the social norm, and because they know that waiters' income depends on tips. Tipping is motivated more by the positive consequences of tipping than by the negative results of not tipping. Patronage frequency and dining alone had no systematic effects on the level of tips or their sensitivity to service quality. Respondents reported tipping much more for excellent service than for poor service, suggesting that tipping can provide significant incentives for high‐quality service. A large majority prefers tipping to service charges.     

Choosing Your Words and Pictures Wisely: When Do Individuation Instructions Reduce the Cross‐Race Effect?

Recognition accuracy for faces of an individual's own race typically exceeds recognition accuracy for other‐race faces. The categorization–individuation model (Hugenberg, Young, Bernstein, & Sacco, 2010) attributes this cross‐race effect to motivation to encode distinctive features of own‐race faces but category defining features for other‐race faces. Two experiments using different stimuli tested hypotheses generated from this model with both Black and White participants. For White participants, instructions to individuate reduced the cross‐race effect in both studies but did not eliminate it in Study 1. Black participants did not exhibit the cross‐race effect in either study, but individuation instructions improved both their same‐race and other‐race sensitivity. The present quality of interracial contact moderated the relationship between instructions and other‐race sensitivity for both Black and White participants in Study 1 but not in Study 2. Overall, results provide mixed support for this social categorization model. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can Students Work Together Equitably? An Analysis of Task Effects in Collaborative Group Work

Past research has shown that ethnic minority students and females tend to participate less in collaborative groups because of their perceived lower status. This study examined the mediating effects that the task type (single-answer versus variable-answer) has on the relationship between diffuse status characteristics of participants (race – Black and White, and gender) and group members' interpersonal perceptions and participation within collaborative groups. Eight groups of four middle school students (Black female, Black male, White female, and White male) completed two tasks (variable-answer and single-answer) while being videotaped. The study found main effects of race and gender for participation and perceptions as well as task by gender effects for giving explanations and perceived quality of ideas. This article presents these findings in terms of gender-specific task characteristics and discusses implications of these results for educators and future research.     

The influence of social factors and implicit racial bias on a generalized own‐race effect

The current study sought to determine whether the experimentally reported ‘own‐race effect’ is other‐race specific, or whether it is a generalized effect. The perceptual processing of own‐ versus two groups of other‐race faces was therefore explored in White and South Asian individuals. Participants completed a computer‐based discrimination task of White, South Asian and Black face‐morphs. Results showed a generalized own‐race effect for White and South Asian participants discriminating own‐ versus other‐race (White/South Asian and Black) faces, such that individuals demonstrated a perceptual discrimination advantage for own‐ versus other‐race faces in general. These findings were linked to implicit racial bias and other‐race individuating experience, demonstrating that social variables play an important role in the magnitude of the own‐race effect. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perspective taking and member‐to‐group generalization of implicit racial attitudes: The role of target prototypicality

Actively considering an individual outgroup member's thoughts, feelings, and other subjective experiences —perspective taking— can improve attitudes toward that person's group. Here, we tested whether such member‐to‐group generalization of implicit racial attitudes is more likely when perspective‐taking targets are viewed as prototypical of their racial group. Results supported a gendered‐race‐prototype hypothesis: The positive effect of perspective taking on implicit attitudes toward Black people and Asian people, respectively, was stronger when the perspective‐taking target was a Black man or Asian woman (gender–race prototypical) versus a Black woman or Asian man (gender–race nonprototypical). These findings identify a boundary condition under which perspective taking may not improve intergroup attitudes and add to a growing literature on social cognition at the intersection of multiple social categories.     

An ambiguous-race illusion in children's face memory

Adults show better memory for ambiguous faces of their own race than for ambiguous faces of another race, even when the faces are identical and differentiated only by extraneous cues to racial category. We investigated whether similar context effects operate early in development. Young children raised in predominantly White environments were presented with computer-generated White-Black morphed faces, each paired with either the White or the Black face that contributed to its construction, and were told that the two faces in each pair were siblings. The children's subsequent recognition memory was more accurate for faces that had been paired with White siblings than for faces that had been paired with Black siblings. The same effect did not obtain when the ambiguous faces were paired with White or Black faces that did not contribute to their construction and did not look like siblings. These findings suggest that face memory in children is not driven exclusively by visual information present in faces and instead depends on an interplay of categorical and perceptual information about race and relationships.     

Effect of Beliefs About Weather Conditions on Tipping

Research has shown that greater degrees of sunshine experienced directly are associated with greater amounts of compliance and tipping. This paper describes two studies that investigated beliefs about sunshine and tipping. The studies were conducted at a casino hotel in Atlantic City; a male server who delivered food and drinks to guests' rooms acted as the confederate. In Study 1, the server reported to guests the actual sky conditions: sunny, partly sunny, cloudy, or rainy. Tip percentages increased linearly from the worst to the best conditions. Study 2 used an experimental design. The server informed guests that the weather was either warm and sunny, cold and sunny, warm and rainy, or cold and rainy. Guests were gullible because their rooms shielded them from the actual conditions. Belief in sunny skies produced greater tip percentages. The temperature belief manipulation had no effect. This research extended previous research by showing that beliefs about weather, in addition to actual weather, can affect behavior.     

Narrowing in categorical responding to other‐race face classes by infants

Infants can form object categories based on perceptual cues, but their ability to form categories based on differential experience is less clear. Here we examined whether infants filter through perceptual differences among faces from different other‐race classes and represent them as a single other‐race class different only from own‐race faces. We used a familiarization/novelty‐preference procedure to investigate category formation for two other‐race face classes (Black vs. Asian) by White 6‐ and 9‐month‐olds. The data indicated that while White 6‐month‐olds categorically represented the distinction between Black and Asian faces, White 9‐month‐olds formed a broad other‐race category inclusive of Black and Asian faces, but exclusive of own‐race White faces. The findings provide evidence that narrowing can occur for mental processes other than discrimination: category formation is also affected. The results suggest that frequency of experience with own‐race versus other‐race classes of faces may propel infants to contrast own‐race faces with other‐race faces, but not different classes of other‐race faces with each other.     

Relationship Between Race and Attitudes Toward Black Men

This article presents an empirical method for assessing attitudes toward Black men. The findings document that race is a significant factor in determining how Black men are perceived by Black and White college students.     

Bad Rap for Rap: Bias in Reactions to Music Lyrics1

This research examines the recent public outcry against violent rap songs such as Ice T's “Cop Killer.” It was hypothesized that rap lyrics receive more negative criticism than other types of lyrics, perhaps because of their association with Black culture. Two experiments were conducted to examine the effect of musical genre and race of singer on reactions to violent song lyrics. The results support the hypothesis. When a violent lyrical passage is represented as a rap song, or associated with a Black singer, subjects find the lyrics objectionable, worry about the consequences of such lyrics, and support some form of government regulation. If the same lyrical passage is presented as country or folk music, or is associated with a White artist, reactions to the lyrics are significantly less critical on all dimensions. The findings are briefly discussed in terms of various models of racism and stereotyping.     

Waiters,Customers, and Service: Some Tips About Tipping1

In order to investigate factors that influence the size of tips given in restaurants, 107 waiters (Study 1) and 137 customers (Study 2) were asked various questions about tipping. The findings confirmed a number of hypotheses. Respondents said that they themselves tip more than most people. Waiters indicated that they were more generous tippers and were more accurate in their estimate of 15% of the bill than customers. Tip size was reportedly increased by friendly service, good suggestions, excellent food, prompt delivery of the main course and check, a self-introduction by the waiter, and receiving separate checks. The tip was decreased by waiting a long time for a beverage and being seated in a bad location. Waiters identified more variables than did customers as being significantly associated with tip size, and they felt that excellent food, being in an expensive restaurant, and being seated in a bad location had greater effects on tipping than did customers. When asked about characteristics of waiters who receive large or small tips, most waiters and customers mentioned the waiter's attitude and quality of service. There was much less consensus on the characteristics of high and low tippers. Gender was not significantly related to any responses. In general, although waiters and customers share many beliefs about tipping, waiters may be more aware than customers of the relevant characteristics of the situation and of the individuals involved.     

Effect of Server Posture on Restaurant Tipping1

The effect of server posture (standing vs. squatting) on the size of tip left by restaurant customers was examined in two naturalistic experiments. In these studies, squatting down next to the tables increased servers’ tips from those tables. Both the practical implications of this effect and its similarity to other nonverbal effects on tipping are discussed.     

Fertility and intergroup bias in racial and minimal-group contexts: evidence for shared architecture

Recent research has shown that White women's bias against Black men increases with elevated fertility across the menstrual cycle. We demonstrate that the association between fertility and intergroup bias is not limited to groups defined by race, but extends to group categories that are minimally defined, and may depend on the extent to which women associate out-group men with physical formidability. In Study 1, Black and White women with strong associations between the racial out-group and physical formidability displayed greater bias against out-group men as conception risk increased. Study 2 replicated these results in a minimal-group paradigm. These findings are consistent with the notion that women may be endowed with a psychological system that generates intergroup bias via mechanisms that rely on categorization heuristics and perceptions of the physical formidability of out-group men, particularly when the costs of sexual coercion are high.