Upon examination into this area I found many studies that have been beneficial to my particular study. The other thing I discovered is that although many different experiments have been done, none looked at method of payment and party size. Perhaps the biggest examiner on this issue has been Michael Lynn from Ohio State University. Lynn has done many experiments that have proved to be very helpful with my research in this field. He's looked at things like whether or not server posture or introduction plays a role in tipping, does neuroticism effect tipping, and does alcohol consumption effect levels of tipping. What Lynn has found is that you have to take into consideration all of these and many other different factors before you look at the tip that was left for the server. Lynn (1983), said that their at least two potential explanations for alcohol's effects on tipping. First, according to Lynn(1983) alcohol improves people's moods and this positive affect may increase tipping. Second, Lynn (1983) believes alcohol decreases people's ability to process information and, in situations in which the most salient cues call for helping, this may reduce people's ability to process additional cues that would inhibit the behavior. However in Lynn's research he found that there was no correlation between tip and the amount of alcohol consumed. These findings were inconsistent with several other studies done by Crusco and Wetzel, (1984).
Lynn also examined the posture of the server and their introduction technique, and the effects that they may have on tipping. The results of this study were consistent with a study done by Kimberly Garrity and Douglas Degelman (1990) which also looked at the effects that sever introduction had on restaurant tipping. The major finding in this study was that having the server identify themselves by name resulted in a large statistically significant effect on the amount that was that tipped. This could be due partially do to the fact that this gives off cues as to the class of the restaurant, which in return creates an atmosphere that produces larger tips. Lynn (1993), found that although server posture didn't affect bill size, it did dramatically affect tipping.
The final variable that was examined by Lynn (1983), dealt with whether tipping did evolve as a means of reducing service workers' envy to their customers. Since service workers have some control over the well-being of their customers, it's in the customers' interest to share their good fortunes with servers and thereby avoid servers' envy. Tipping is a means whereby customers can do this. If this theory holds true, tipping should be prevalent in areas with a high amount of neuroticism and lower in areas with low levels of neuroticism.
Numerous other studies examined whether or not tipping was cheaper by the bunch. In a study done by Freeman, Walker, Borden, and Latane (1975) they found that the larger the dining party the smaller the percentage of the bill is left as a tip. Those dining alone tipped nearly nineteen percent of the bill where as groups of four to six only tipped thirteen and a half percent. Donald Elman (1976) further examined this study and felt that not only did you need to look at the number of individuals at the table but also the size of check. He proposed that there was a more reasonable explanation than the diffusion of responsibility notion suggested by Freeman, Walker, Borden, and Latane (1975). Elman felt that the best explanation as to why tipping seemed to be cheaper by the bunch was do to the fact that one or two people could be served easier than six or seven. Thus maybe the quality of service was lower with a large group. Melvin Snyder (1976) disagreed with Elman's notion that two people can be served easier than three or four. Upon interviewing ten waitresses and one waiter he found that servers preferred to wait on one party of four over four parties of one. They stated that the four together could be waited on easier than the four singles. If this is true, larger parties may tip a smaller per cent because what they perceive as fair compensation for the service rendered is smaller fraction of the bill.
Two separate studies done by April Crusco and Christopher Wetzel (1984) and Renee Stephen and Richard Zweigenhaft (1985) looked at whether interpersonal touched effected the amount that was tipped. What was found on both sides was that depending on the type of touch exhibited by the server the amount of tip increased slightly. Crusco and Wetzel (1984) discovered touching a patron on the shoulder did significantly reduce tips compared to the fleeting touch, but both types did increase tipping compared to the no touch condition. As for the sex main effect, males tended to tip more than females when touched. This study by the way was only done with females. The study by Stephen and Zweigenhaft (1985) looked at whether a touch on the palm of the hand, a shoulder touch, or no touch would increase the tip amount. Again only done with females the results were some what identical to the previous study. Although the type of touch played no major role as to the amount of tip left, those who weren't touched tended to tip less than those who were touched. Also another interesting result was that the females who were touched tipped more than the males who were touched.
What I propose is that servers will both get a higher tip from those individuals who pay by means of a credit card a lower tip from those individuals who pay with cash. I alos believe that the size of the dining party will alsi affect the amount that a server is tipped.
After examining the variables that I had recorded I decided to use three of the variables as my conditions: the number of people in the party, their method of payment, and the amount of tip left. I took all the material I had collected and condensed them into three conditions by placing them on Word Perfect. Once in Word Perfect I then broke them down into three separate columns, one column being the number of people in the party, the next being the method of payment, and the third and final column being the amount of tip that was left for the server. I then devised a simple scoring scale for my study. If the patron paid with cash I gave that a one. If the patron paid with a credit card I scored that a two. I had forty-three subjects who paid with cash and only twenty-one who paid with a credit card. I then saved that on a disk so an Independent t-test could be ran on my data at a later date.
Like mentioned earlier, I had sixty-four subjects in my study. Forty-three of those subjects paid with cash and only twenty-one paid with a credit card. The average percentage of the bill that was left as a tip by those who paid with cash was 11.03%. The average percentage of the bill that was tipped by those who paid with a credit card was slightly lower, at 10.83%. This was found not to be a significant difference upon running the test with t(62)=.17,p>.05. My t-value was equal to .17 with 62 degrees of freedom and with p being .868 it was greater than the alpha level of .05 making it non-significant. In this instance the standard deviation for paying with cash was 4.74 and the standard deviation of paying with a credit card was 4.535
The next t-test I ran looked at the theory that the patrons who paid with a credit card still tipped more overall than those patrons who paid with cash. Upon looking at the previous results I found those who paid with cash did tip a slightly higher percentage of the bill than those who paid with a credit card. Still the analysis of that data proved the difference not to be significant.
The average amount of the patrons bill who paid with cash was twenty-six dollars and forty-seven cents with a standard deviation of 8.49. The average amount of the patrons bill who paid with a credit card was forty-six dollars and fifty-four cents with a standard deviation of 29.314. An individual who paid with a credit card had a bill that was almost twice that of an individual who used cash to pay their bill. When looking at the results obtained from the test I found that the difference in the bill prices was significant with t(62)=3.14,p<.05. The t value was equal to -3.14 with 62 degrees of freedom and p being .003 was less than the alpha level of .05 making it a significant difference. The difference in the bill prices was largely do the fact that the people who paid with cash average 2 people per party with a standard deviation of .798 and those who paid with credit cards had 4 people per party with a standard deviation of 2.755.
The original question I posed with my study was that those patrons who paid with a credit card would tip a higher amount than those patrons who paid with cash. I found that the average price of the bill's was significantly different from one another. Those who paid with credit card paid almost twice the price to eat than those who used cash as a method of payment. Because of this fact you find that overall the difference in bill price seemed to affect the overall amount that was tipped. The average tip of those who paid with cash was $2.83 with a standard deviation of 1.26. The average tip of those who paid with a credit card was $4.14 with a standard deviation of 2.55. Upon conducting a t-test I found that t(62)=-2.74,p<.05. This was a significant difference since p being equal to .008 made it less than the alpha level of .05.
Even though my results did support my original theory, my study was not without its limitations. The biggest problem I believe I faced was that I only conducted my study in one restaurant. If I would have had the time, I would have liked to have gone to about five or six restaurants and conducted my study. Another limitation with my study was that I only used three servers to collect all of my data from. I really feel that in order to do the study properly I'd need to go to a restaurant where there are many servers with many different working shifts. I also was limited to looking at the people who tipped during dinner time hours and who ate off a buffet. To get a good indication of the tipping difference I think I'd need to look at people who eat at restaurants during different times of the day. Another flaw is that by having a limited number of servers and only using one restaurant I lowered the amount of data I collected. I had only twenty-one subjects who paid with credit cards and forty-three who paid with cash. It would have been nice if I could have got an equal distribution of subjects for each payment condition. Perhaps the biggest limitation of my study is that I was unable to control for other possible variables that may have affected my study. There are so many things that affect what a patron of restaurant will tip a server, I couldn't possible control for all of them. Even though I made note of them, I still didn't conduct any test to see their effect on tipping.
My study was a simple one that didn't have many steps to it. For this reason and a number of others I also believe that my study has very good generality. This study, as well as the others I have used for background material, could be done in any culture or society where tipping of servers is a prevalent concept. Many of the studies I examined were not just located in one specific area of the United States. Many times they varied on what variables were being manipulated by the experimenter. In fact a study done by Lynn (1994) looked at tipping behavior as it occurred across the country. So my study is one that could be applied to many different societies and cultures where tipping is done on a regular basis.
Directions for future research is also another thing that I feel my study could be used for. My study, although it has its limitations, could be expanded on and done to the point where it is considered a superb experiment. One thing that would have to be done, would be to control for many of the extraneous variables that could have a bearing on tipping behavior. I took note of some of these variables on my charts. A few of these that I feel would have an effect on tipping would be alcohol consumption, gender of the server, gender of the individual that paid the bill, whether the patron was familiar with the server, and what meal they were eating, be it breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Most of these variables have been examined in numerous other studies, so I decided to look at method of payment, party size, and tip. If I myself or other interested researchers would like to expand on this study and take it a step further, it wouldn't be to difficult to do. There is so much research out there that an interested experimenter would never run out of ideas.
What I found after conducting my research is that many of my findings matched that of early research done in the same field. Now although I didn't investigate the same variables, I could see how other experimental findings matched mine. One such correlation that I really believed to be comparable was the finding of percentage of the bill that was tipped and the party size of those dining. Even though my findings here were not significant, there was a little difference between them, that was worth noting. My findings that people who pay with cash tipped a higher percentage of the bill matched those findings reported by Freeman, Walker, Borden, and Latane (1975). Elman (1976) followed up on the previous study by looking at the size of a party a server is waiting on. Elman (1976) believed a smaller group could be waited on much easier than a larger group, thus you find the difference in tip. Elman (1976) believed a smaller group would tip more than a larger group, based solely on the quality of service. However, my results were different than those of Elman (1976). I found the larger the group the higher the tip, and it was the larger groups that use the credit card to pay their bill. I however did not look at the quality of service.
The other experiments I found in my literature search, just served as basic background material for the study I conducted. They really didn't investigate the same variables that I did, but they helped to give my a starting point for my project. There are so many variables that affect tipping that you could conduct numerous experiments and still find something else that affected tipping.