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Albany, NY – In today's Academic Minute, Dr. Holona Ochs of Lehigh University examines how we decide when to tip and how social factors influence the amount.
Holona Ochs is an assistant professor of political science at Lehigh University. Her research focuses on understanding credible sources of authority that are trustworthy and trust enhancing. She has co-authored two books on nonstandard compensation systems, Gratuity:A Contextual Understanding of Tipping Norms from the Perspective of Tipped Employees, and Getting a Cut: A Contextual Understanding of Commission Systems.
Ochs has published research on justice and governance in journals including Justice Research and Policy, Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, Journal of Public Affairs Education, Policy Studies Journal, Social Science Quarterly, American Politics Research, and Public Personnel Management.
Dr.Holona Ochs - Why We Tip
Tipping is more complicated than you think. There's confusion over how much to give, when to give it and in even how tips financially or emotionally compensate the recipient. Still, more than 90 percent of Americans do it.
I'm interested in odd forms of financial compensation, so a colleague and I interviewed 425 tip-earners, from postal workers and bartenders to strippers - to get their views. From these interviews, we coauthored the book: "Gratuity." We found that tips have less connection to the economics of demand than to social code, meaning tips are less about money than emotion.
In fact, what tips don't do is indicate the quality of service. Customers don't tip as a reward. Tippers care about how they are perceived. And they give bigger tips to workers who meet their social expectations. For example, customers are more likely to give a higher tip to an affluent college student waiting tables than a single mother working in a family restaurant. The result is that tips don't consistently and accurately redistribute wealth, or provide management with an idea of who does the best work.
So who tips poorly? Servers believe foreigners and kids, for example, won't tip well. So they may often spend less time and focus on providing quality service to those customers, and maybe have themselves to blame?
So in this confusing world, what's the conventional etiquette for holiday tipping? Well, the holidays are a great time to tip when it's more about appreciation than an indication of status. But keep in mind, with a society as diverse as the U.S., conventions may conflict. As for whom to tip: Nannies, housekeepers, dog walkers, postal workers, sanitation workers and teachers all said they receive holiday gifts. And the typical holiday haul is up to one week's salary.