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.     

Restaurant Tipping: Free‐Riding,Social Acceptance,and Gender Differences1

The practice of paying gratuities for services is a worldwide custom. Tipping is found only in some professions, which suggests that it serves to increase the efficiency of specific kinds of exchanges. The literature accepts the view that monitoring of employees by customers appears to be the logical rationale for the practice of tipping. This can be seen in that gratuities are paid at the discretion of consumers after they receive the services for which they are paying. However, it does not explain why, given the voluntary aspect of tipping, rational people would not free‐ride on the tipping of others. We found that both men and women free‐ride in their tipping behavior. Yet, we also found that men are more influenced by social acceptance or approval in their tipping behavior than are women.     

Does Weather Actually Affect Tipping? An Empirical Analysis of Time‐Series Data1

Prior literature has found evidence that pleasant weather (namely, sunshine) leads to higher tipping rates, presumably because it improves the moods of either servers or patrons. However, studies examining the relationship between pleasant weather and tipping behavior have involved relatively small samples of participants and daily observations. In addition, only one such study ( Cunningham, 1979 ) used actual weather data to examine this relationship. We address these shortcomings by testing empirically the weather–tipping relationship on 2 years of actual sales data from a busy restaurant. We found no statistically significant relationship between sunshine and tipping. Tipping appears to be better explained as an institutional standard or norm, rather than as a prosocial behavior that can be modulated by weather‐induced changes in mood.     

A meta‐analytic review of tipping compensation practices: An agency theory perspective

Tipping represents a form of compensation valued at over $50 billion a year in the United States alone. Tipping can be used as an incentive mechanism to reduce a principal–agent problem. An agency problem occurs when the interests of a principal and agent are misaligned, and it is challenging for the principal to monitor or control the activities of the agent. However, past research has been limited in the investigation of the extent to which tipping is effective at addressing this problem. Following an examination of 74 independent studies with 12,271 individuals, meta‐analytic results indicate that there is a small, positive relation between service quality and percentage of a bill tipped ( = .15 without outliers). Yet, in support of the idea behind tipping, relative weights analyses illustrate that service quality was a stronger predictor of percentage of the bill tipped than food quality, frequency of patronage, and dining party size. Evidence also suggests that racial minority servers tend to be tipped less than White servers (Cohen's d = .17), and women tend to be tipped more than men (Cohen's d = .15). Still, given the magnitude of the effect, one might question if tipping is an effective compensation practice to reduce the principal–agent problem. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for future research.     

The Psychology of Restaurant Tipping1

Since its origins in 18th-century English pubs, tipping has become a custom involving numerous professions and billions of dollars. Knowledge of the psychological factors underlying tipping would benefit service workers, service managers, and customers alike. Two studies were conducted to provide such knowledge about restaurant tipping. The percent tipped in these studies was related to group size, the customer's gender, the method of payment (cash or credit), and in some cases, the size of the bill. Tipping was not related to service quality, waitperson's efforts, waitperson's gender, restaurant's atmosphere, or restaurant's food.     

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.     

Operational Psychology Post-9/11: A Decade of Evolution

Operational psychology continues to expand at a rapid rate. Over the course of the last decade, it has emerged from relative obscurity and developed into an exciting, and somewhat controversial, professional subdiscipline within psychology. As the community of operational psychologists has increased and matured, it has reached a tipping point, creating the need for practice guidelines, training programs, and a greater emphasis on operationally relevant empirical research. The starting point for these developments is an integrative definition of operational psychology. In this article, we revisit previous definitions, relevant research literature, and recent developments in this specialty. We propose a definition that emphasizes consultation to an operational decision maker concerning issues of national security and defense.     

Deception and truth detection when analyzing nonverbal and verbal cues

In this article, I present my view on the significant developments and theoretical/empirical tipping points in nonverbal and verbal deception and lie detection from the last 30 years and on prospects for future research in this domain. I discuss three major shifts in deception detection research: (a) From observing target persons' nonverbal behavior to analyzing their speech; (b) from lie detection based on differences between truth tellers and liars' levels of arousal to lie detection based on the different cognitive processes or strategies adopted to appear convincing; and (c) from passively observing target persons to actively interviewing them to elicit or enhance verbal cues to deceit. Finally, I discuss my ideas for future research, focusing on initiatives from my own lab. Hopefully, this will stimulate other researchers to explore innovative ideas in the verbal deception research domain, which already has seen so much progress in the last decade.     

Geodemographic Differences in Knowledge About the Restaurant Tipping Norm

A national telephone survey indicated that knowledge about the restaurant tipping norm is greater among people who are White, in their 40 s to 60 s, highly educated, wealthy, living in metropolitan areas, and living in the Northeast than among their counterparts. These findings support the idea that differential familiarity with tipping norms underlies geodemographic differences in tipping behavior. An educational campaign promoting the 15-20% restaurant tipping norm is needed to reduce geodemographic differences in tipping and to increase the willingness of waiters and waitresses to serve all customers equally.     

Consumer Racial Discrimination in Tipping: A Replication and Extension

This study examined the effects of server race, customer race, and their interaction on restaurant tips while statistically controlling for customers' perceptions of service quality and other variables. The findings indicate that consumers of both races discriminated against Black service providers by tipping them less than White service providers. Furthermore, this server race effect on tipping was moderated by perceived service quality and dining party size. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. Particularly noteworthy is the possibility that the server race effect on tipping represents an adverse impact against Black servers that makes the use of tipping to compensate employees a violation of employment discrimination law in the United States.     

Masked ball: Ethics,laws and financial contradictions in hungarian health care

Corruption is a major problem in the societies of the post-communist Central European countries. Corruption in health care has some unique characteristics undermining the efficacy of and respect for Hungarian health care. One of the forms of corruption is tipping. This highly contested phenomenon is present in most of the patient/health professional’s interactions in a sophisticated manner, raising serious ethical and legal dilemmas. The present paper analyzes tipping and other corruption-related factors, such as financial conflict of interest between industry and health care and argues that since ethical and legal considerations are often ignored in the country, patient care and clinical research are affected by these controversial issues to a great extent.     

Career proactivity: Conceptual and theoretical reflections

This article adds several conceptual and theoretical reflections to the article “Career proactivity: A bibliometric literature review and a future research agenda” by Jiang et al. The authors conducted a timely and relevant study by analyzing and integrating literature on career proactivity from the domains of organizational and vocational behavior. Prior research has clearly demonstrated that these areas are still largely operating as separate “islands,” both conceptually and methodologically. As such, systematically analyzing the literature and synthesizing the many existing proactivity-related constructs are important steps forward in taking research on career proactivity to the next level. Though their bibliometric analysis confirms the gap between vocational psychology and OB research, there is also a hopeful message in the article, as several clusters showed considerable connections. Thus, it seems that scholars are starting to build bridges between the islands. Building on their analysis and future research suggestions, in this article, we further explore three specific considerations related to (1) conceptual issues, (2) theoretical issues, and (3) additions to their future research agenda.     

Bribery and extortion: Can restaurants help?

Examples of tipping suggest that the distinction between tipping, bribery and extortion can be questioned. Some well known ideas about bribery will not work if extended to tipping and, indeed, these analyses may founder whether or not tipping, bribery and extortion merge. I suggest that more case study analysis as well as a discussion of the relationship between character and actions are needed.     

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.     

Using Policy Capturing to Examine Tipping Decisions1

Participants (n= 15) made tipping decisions for 80 restaurant situations. A policy-capturing analysis was then conducted for each participant to quantitatively describe relations between his or her judgments and the information used to make those judgments. Participants possessed reliable, simple, and nonconfigural models. The majority of these individual models heavily weighted bill-size information. In addition, service-quality, server-friendliness, or food-quality information affected tipping decisions, to a lesser extent, for a number of individuals. Atmosphere, server gender, and restaurant cleanliness information were not considered in any tipping model. Unlike affect, social desirability, and gender, participants' dining-out frequency was related to the types of information used when tipping. Finally, cluster analysis of the models revealed 11 general approaches to tipping.     

Explaining the Black-White Test Score Gap: The Role of Test Perceptions

The Black-White gap in test scores on cognitive ability tests has been the subject of much research effort. This article critically evaluates the literature regarding one potential contributor to the gap: test perceptions. A model of how these perceptions affect test performance is presented, and the literature linking them to test performance and race is evaluated. Directions for future research and intervention are discussed.     

The Affective Tipping Point: Do Motivated Reasoners Ever “Get It”?

In order to update candidate evaluations voters must acquire information and determine whether that new information supports or opposes their candidate expectations. Normatively, new negative information about a preferred candidate should result in a downward adjustment of an existing evaluation. However, recent studies show exactly the opposite; voters become more supportive of a preferred candidate in the face of negatively valenced information. Motivated reasoning is advanced as the explanation, arguing that people are psychologically motivated to maintain and support existing evaluations. Yet it seems unlikely that voters do this ad infinitum. To do so would suggest continued motivated reasoning even in the face of extensive disconfirming information. In this study we consider whether motivated reasoning processes can be overcome simply by continuing to encounter information incongruent with expectations. If so, voters must reach a tipping point after which they begin more accurately updating their evaluations. We show experimental evidence that such an affective tipping point does in fact exist. We also show that as this tipping point is reached, anxiety increases, suggesting that the mechanism that generates the tipping point and leads to more accurate updating may be related to the theory of affective intelligence. The existence of a tipping point suggests that voters are not immune to disconfirming information after all, even when initially acting as motivated reasoners.     

Group Attachment and the Reduction of Value-Driven Ambivalence

This article analyzes the effects of value-driven ambivalence and group attachment on response variability in public attitudes toward campaign finance reform. The analysis demonstrates that group attachment, when activated by affective cues, moderates the effects of ambivalence on response variability. By tipping the balance of considerations in one direction or the other, group attachments make it easier for ambivalent respondents to make tradeoffs between competing values during policy choices and, as a result, dampen response variability. Methodologically, the results offer an important cautionary note about the use of linear ambivalence scales by calling into question the assumption that indifference is an intermediate state between preference and ambivalence.