Summary
Tipping in America has expanded into unexpected areas, with 72% of Americans saying it is expected in more places than five years ago, according to Pew Research.
While tipping can release feel-good neurotransmitters, a Bankrate survey found two-thirds of Americans now view it negatively, and one-third feel it’s “out of control.”
Critics highlight issues like social pressure and wage inequality, while businesses attempting no-tipping models, like a New York wine bar, have struggled to sustain them.
Many believe tipping culture has become excessive, with calls for reform growing.
And yet, people are presented more often with a meaningless request for tips. Sounds like Nudge to me. Plz bring evidence.
(Edited to remove superfluous irrelevant claim that might not be true, anyway. I regret the error.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory
Critique -> no evidence
I see that now. Thanks.
It looks like we have a plausible mechanism and no evidence yet. I wonder who is trying to gather more evidence. My money is on nudging having nontrivial effect, but I might sleep better if I knew it didn’t. Either way, people will try, and that’s where we are.
In that case, we fall back to the impact. All the more reason to advise folks to resist tipping unless they actually want to—to interpret the requests for tips in unexpected places as little more than an optimistic, misguided, or even accidental attempt to nudge. It’s the judgmental stories that people tell themselves that seem to tie them up in knots. Let others judge you for not tipping, because they were going to find some way to judge you, anyway.
We can practise resisting. I recommend trying.
Oh I’m a huge asshole tipper I dgaf.
I think there’s probably some mechanism backing it that is real, but right now it seems like the original nudge authors are just trying to defend their concept.
There’s a fun if books could kill podcast episode about nudge in particular which is where I learned. This is why I say I can’t comment on specific effectiveness in one instance or another, just that the nudge concept hasn’t been proven.
I will look for that episode. Thank you.
I maintain that Nudge not being proven doesn’t change much in this situation, because as long as enough of “the right” people believe it has enough of an effect, they’ll continue to try. All it takes is one well-placed person who makes the tipping screen enabled by default for a popular payment collection service and/or adds resistance to changing that setting. Dark patterns spread easily, even when they don’t work. Even when they result in blowback.
No no no. The burden of proof is on you to show that people are actually tipping more. The article said that people reported seeing prompts to tip in a lot more places and many people have said tipping is out of control but no where did it give any data to show that people are tipping more.
I personally don’t tip in any of the new tipping situations. I don’t tip at retail checkouts or restaurant takeouts. I still tip when it’s sit down service and the server is nice, attentive, and punctual (and more if they’re really friendly).
I have heard from the “tipping is out of control” crowd in my local restaurant discussion group and some of these folks have reacted so negatively that they swore to never tip again. I have no way of tracking these people to see if they keep their promise and I kind of doubt they would refuse to tip a really nice server at a sit down restaurant. However, I would be really surprised if these folks were actually tipping more than they used to before all the tipping prompts showed up on credit card terminals.
I see. So I can understand your original reply as something in the neighborhood of “I don’t believe that people are tipping more”? rather than a denial of Nudge theory?
Indeed, I don’t have evidence. Let me withdraw any claim that people are tipping more, not only because I can’t support it with data, but also because that’s irrelevant to my point.
Nudge Theory is about nudging people by changing the choice of least resistance. The dark side of that is presenting people with an option to tip in a situation where they can be judged for refusing. Whether they actually tip more or not, this is literally taxing on the nervous system and is just another way of using bugs in the human brain against humans. It is presenting another resentment-stirring obstacle in their path.
In addition, and somewhat beside the point, I’d be shocked if people weren’t actually tipping in those situations. Worse, and more troubling, I’d be shocked if they weren’t consequently tipping less to wait staff who truly need it and were being tipped more before this trend started happening. I have no evidence, but I see a clear and plausible mechanism.
That’s it.
Two different people
I’m the one who said nudge theory is bs because studies show the theory isn’t valid.
The other person, who was right, points out that you can’t use unrelated circumstantial data to back up your point
Serves me right for replying before I was entirely awake. I didn’t notice that that wasn’t you.