Researchers recently studied the relationship between physical appearance and tipping in restaurants, and their findings were not surprising:
Attractive servers — identified as such by the customers who interacted with them — earn approximately $1,261 more per year in tips than unattractive servers.
The results of this study are not surprising. It’s sad and stupid, of course, but also might just be human nature, too. Somewhere buried in our DNA, thanks almost certainly to evolution, human beings are drawn to certain physical traits, perhaps because those traits were once advantageous for procreation or survival.
Regardless of the reason, it a simple fact:
Attractive people tend to be treated better in many ways in our world.
But what was surprising, at least to me, was the primary driver of this disparity in tipping:
Female customers.
The wage disparity resulted from women tipping attractive female servers more than unattractive female servers.
Men played almost no role in the disparity uncovered in this study. The vast majority of the tipping disparity stemmed from women rewarding other women for their perceived beauty.
I couldn’t believe it.
For once, men weren’t the problem. Or even part of the problem.
Then again, this is just one study.
