Guilt Tipping: 56% of People Tip Even If They Receive Terrible Service
By Marcy Bonebright, dealnews Senior Staff Writer
In a recent poll, dealnews asked its readers whether they felt obligated to tip even if they received terrible service. A surprising majority of readers answered in the affirmative — about 56% of respondents said they definitely would or sometimes would leave a tip in such a situation. Obviously, there are some guilty consciences out there!
But why do we feel guilty when we stiff someone that's provided bad service? We delved deeper into the messy politics of tipping etiquette and discovered that, like everything else, it comes down to a question of nature versus nurture.
Social Anxiety Makes Us Feel Guilty
"The major reason people tip is to avoid social disapproval," Cornell professor and tipping expert Michael Lynn said in an interview with CNN Money. In fact, according to Lynn's research, a customer who leaves a good tip might be trying to dodge the server's envy. "Our willingness to tip regardless of service reflects a sense that the customer is in a better position financially," the article reads.
Of course, leaving a tip regardless of whether it's earned could also be a way of alleviating the stress of being served by another person. As the article points out, Lynn's research has shown "that tips tend to be higher in countries where there is greater neuroticism about and intolerance of ambiguous situations."
We Tip Regardless of Service Because We've Evolved That Way
But perhaps there's something more fundamental behind our collective tipping impulse. According to a theory posed by Pleiotropy, a science blog, we may have evolved to tip our servers no matter what. "Evolutionarily speaking, what's the advantage of leaving a tip, and why do we have a sense of guilt when we don't tip? One explanation is that we evolved under conditions where breaking the moral codes were always punished, even if just in a minor way, when the cheater was found out." So, the theory goes, we evolved to feel guilty when we didn't tip.
Therefore, when you stiff a waitress in Guymon, Oklahoma, the blog explains, "we can think rationally that there is no reason we should feel bad for ourselves when not leaving a tip, but we do so anyway, because guilt is a feeling we don't arrive at rationally, and our emotions don't know that we will never come back to Guymon and propose to that waitress."
Whether it's out of a desire to combat social inequity or an innate drive to maintain status within the herd, one thing is certain: dealnews readers aren't the only ones leaving a tip when the service is terrible. Odds are, the server providing that shoddy service would leave a tip in the exact same situation.
What do you think, readers? Is compulsory tipping the result of nature or nurture? Or is there some other force at work? Tell us your theories below!
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Not only that, if you get "bad" service it can be the fault of a backed up kitchen or a host that sat too many tables at once. So "stiffing" a waiter is depriving them of their living wage based on the assumption that a tip is extra. Practically speaking, it's not and stiffing should be reserved for circumstances when you are compassionately sparing the server from a complaint to management. Otherwise, sure, tip less, but anything less than 10% is stealing wages from the server.
Believing the price on the menu should be enough doesn't make it so and blaming the restaurant owner for not paying a living wage is just an excuse, that's the industry
When you get your car repaired, you pay for parts AND labor. I would like to see you try to tell your repair shop that you didn't like the mechanics attitude, so your only paying for the parts. See if they give you back your keys. I suspect you'll be taking the bus to work.
Cooperation with a broken system is generally NOT the best way to fix it.
People that work restaurants in Florida hate the Canadiens because they do not tip well or at all.
This is because in Canada restaurants pay their employees a living wage. (I live in Chgo.) Restaurants in Canada do NOT depend on customers making up the difference in the waiters/waitresses income.
I would like to recommend the USA to do the same thing - require ALL employers (Including Restaurants) to pay employees at least the minimum wage, then issue the W-2 with all reported income. This will cause many restaurant workers to report income and NOT collect unemployment!
I also believe that service below the minimum level should be taken into account, and I have in the past "left" negative tips; that is, I have (very rarely) subtracted up to 5% from the check for horrid or hostile service. This has been challenged only once, and accepted when I told the manager that the alternative was to be paid NOTHING for inflicting the terrible experience on me and my family.