RE: Tipping in restaurants

From: Charles Nelson (c.nelson@mail.utexas.edu)
Date: Sun Aug 19 2001 - 09:54:39 PDT


Phillip asked:

>So if, as Rose suggests, American restaurant staff work for speed of
>throughput plus happy customers at least partly because of the prospect of
>the amount they will take home in tips, what is it that causes most NZ
>waiting staff to behave in broadly the same way?

This sounds like normal human behavior to me. That is, people's
happiness levels are affected by their expectations. Perhaps along
similar lines, there's the research showing that rewarding students
for their work, usually in the form of grades, dampens their
motivation for learning so that without continual rewarding, they
lose interested in what they are doing. So, NZ restaurant staff who
aren't tipped continue to enjoy what they're doing, while U.S.staff
who are tipped require a continuation of tipping to enjoy their work.

Charles



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