Sweetening the Till: The Use of Candy to Increase Restaurant Tipping1

doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00216.x

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Wiley InterScience

Journal of Applied Social Psychology

Volume 32 Issue 2, Pages 300 - 309

Published Online: 31 Jul 2006

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Sweetening the Till: The Use of Candy to Increase Restaurant Tipping¹

David B. Strohmetz ² ¹ Bruce Rind ² Reed Fisher ³ Michael Lynn ⁴

¹ Monmouth University ² Temple University ³ Johnson State College ⁴ Cornell University

² Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David B. Strohmetz, Psychology Department, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ 07764. E-mail: dstrohme@mon-mouth.edu

¹ We would like to thank the servers who acted as the experimental accomplices in these experiments as well as the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

ABSTRACT

A common practice among servers in restaurants is to give their dining parties an unexpected gift in the form of candy when delivering the check. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of this gesture on the tip percentages received by servers. Experiment 1 found that customers who received a small piece of chocolate along with the check tipped more than did customers who received no candy. Experiment 2 found that tips varied with the amount of the candy given to the customers as well as with the manner in which it was offered. It is argued that reciprocity is a stronger explanation for these findings than either impression management or the good mood effect.

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)

10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00216.x About DOI