The evidence is mixed—and the practice varies widely across the world
Mr Frank’s findings confirmed the notion of the tip as a sort of reward for outstanding service. That may sound straightforward, but a follow-up study with Michael Lynn of Cornell University, where Mr Frank now happens to be a student, found an opportunity for some sleight of hand. They discovered that performing a magic trick at a table also increased the tips for the waiters and waitresses serving there, even though they had done absolutely nothing more than usual.
The presence of a pandemic or of a magician performing at one’s table are just two of an array of factors that may affect the size of a tip. A tipper may simply be touched by the server. If a waiter squats down beside you at the table as he or she takes your order, that often elicits a higher tip. Good weather may spur generosity too. Race can be an uglier factor. A study of tips for cab drivers found that black drivers were tipped on average at a rate of 13%, while white drivers got 20%.
In India and Africa, where the gap between the prosperous middle class and the poor is often huge, tips are most certainly expected. Some academics have tried to see whether a stronger tipping culture correlates to measurable psychological traits in different cultural settings. One study across 30 countries suggested that tipping was more common in societies where inequality was rife and where the guilty feelings of the well-off are more acute.
One study finds that quality of service explains a variation of no more than 5% in the size of the tip. In a study of rides using Uber, where only 15% of trips are tipped, the passenger’s characteristics proved three times more relevant than those of the driver when explaining the size of the tip.Tipping quite often benefits the restaurateur or business as much as—sometimes even more than—the recipient of the tip.
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