EFFECT OF BELIEFS ABOUT WEATHER CONDITIONS ON TIPPING

Research has shown that greater degrees of sunshine experienced direct ly are associated with greater amounts of compliance and tipping. This paper describes two studies that investigated beliefs about sunshine and tipping. The studies were conducted at a casino hotel in Atlantic City; a male server who delivered food and drinks to guests' rooms act ed as the confederate. In Study 1, the server reported to guests the a ctual sky conditions: sunny, partly sunny, cloudy, or rainy. Tip perce ntages increased linearly from the worst to the best conditions. Study 2 used an experimental design. The server informed guests that the we ather was either warm and sunny, cold and sunny, warm and rainy, or co ld and rainy. Guests were gullible because their rooms shielded them f rom the actual conditions. Belief in sunny skies produced greater tip percentages. The temperature belief manipulation had no effect. This r esearch extended previous research by showing that beliefs about weath er, in addition to actual weather, can affect behavior.