Being Uniquely Nice: Feelings of Liking and Belonging can Increase Tips

Abstract

Tips constitute a large portion of servers’ total income, and as such, understanding which behaviors increase tips is of great concern to service providers. Past research indicates that server-diner interactions effectively increase tips, but here we explore whether different types of interactions matter. We investigate whether preferential treatment leads to larger tips and if feelings of liking and belonging mediate the relationship. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of four scenarios: the participant’s table was either told a joke, heard the same joke told to another table, both tables heard the same joke, or neither table heard the joke. Participants treated with preferential treatment (unique niceness) – where only their table was told a joke and others were not – reported intentions to leave larger tips. Results support our hypothesis that unique niceness increases tips, but did not support our prediction those feelings of liking and belonging mediated the relationship.