Jun. 21--Older People Give Larger Tips Than Younger Folks 

By Bernice Kanner, marketing and advertising columnist 

NEW YORK--Would you tip more on a nice day? You'd probably say it makes no difference, but you'd be wrong. 

When guests at an Atlantic City hotel with no outside views were told it was sunny when they received their breakfast tray, they tipped on average 29 percent of the bill. Those who heard it was rainy tipped 19 percent of the bill. Guests told it was cloudy tipped 24 percent and those given a partly sunny forecast tipped 26 percent. 

It may bring out the worst in everyone--self-importance, miserliness or social nervousness in customers, as well as anxiety or blatant greed in employees, but tipping remains very much the law of the land--and in some ways a peculiar reading of the hand. 

Most people find it troublesome but necessary, but that's about all they agree on. According to Market Facts of Arlington Heights, Ill., 94 percent of folks who are served by wait staff always or usually leave a little something to express their gratitude--or conformity. 

Even with strategies like doubling the tax, fewer than one-third of us profess to feeling competent figuring out the tip, especially when it comes to captains and wine stewards. 

Men, perhaps because of practice or natural feelings of superiority, claim to be slightly more adept at it than women (according to my forthcoming book "Are You Normal About Money?"). 

Patrons tip more if their waiter or waitress touches them on the arm or shoulder. Even if you don't want to hear it when Candy introduces herself by name, she's playing the odds. 

Waiters and waitresses who crouch at the table when taking an order get better tips, as do waitresses who put a smiley face on the bill increase their pay-but waiters who do the same see their tips drop. 

Research says that on average patrons increase their tips by two percentage points if the waiter writes thank you on the bill. 

Experts say that those who pay with credit cards tend to tip more than diners who pay with cash. And just like the smell of apple pine can increase the sale price of a home, a little strategy like putting the bill on a tray jacks up the return. Researchers report that the mere presence of a tray increases the size of the tip, while a decorated tray increases the tip best of all. 

Urbanites tend to be the best tippers, while women tip slightly more than men, according to a study conducted by Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch, a market research firm based in Horsham, Penn. Yet more than twice as many women as men are turned off by winks from the waiter. 

Equally surprising: Older people give larger tips than younger folks. Older people tend to give female workers less, while men as a group are less generous to other men. 

Fifty-seven percent are irked when a service charge is included in the bill, as is common in Europe: Nine percent refuse to pay it. But 11 percent leave a tip in addition to the service charge included. 

Two out of three of us calculate the tip on the gross amount instead of the pretax total. Three out of four tip the same percentage in an expensive restaurant as we would in a cheap place. 

Fifty-seven percent tip the same percentage for food as for drinks and 83 percent never leave a tip at a takeout. People who eat by themselves are the best tippers, leaving an average tip of 20 percent, compared with 16.9 percent for two people and 15.2 percent for three, according to the NPD Group, which does research on consumer marketing. The rate drops to 14.9 percent for four and 13.2 percent for five diners. 

Although Americans tip lavishly, we don't do it indiscriminately. One-third of customers don't tip the hair stylist who owns the salon. Twenty-eight percent of guests who stay in hotels never tip the maid. 

Only 21 percent of us regularly tip the attendant in a public bathroom while half do so only when they offer a towel or if they can't escape without embarrassment. One out of four people who use a luggage handler stiff him. 

And we don't think twice about cutting back for cause. Eighteen percent say that if the staff pools their tips, then they trim their largess. 

More than half of us scale back to 10 percent when the service doesn't meet expectations and 42 percent would cut the tip big time if the waiter failed to do something about an unsatisfactory meal. 

Twenty-seven percent would shave the tip if the waiter didn't bring water when asked. And if the food's not good, 21 percent of patrons take it out on the server. 

Four out of five of us say they tip the same if they're not likely to be back--that it's a reward for past service and not a bribe for future favor. But 21 percent figure, who's to know? 

The use of the word "tip" originates from 18th-century England, where coffeehouse patrons were encouraged to put coins in a box labeled "To Insure Promptness." 

Researchers have found that people tip not just to say thanks or guarantee better service on a return visit but for all kinds of psychological power trips. 

Studies show that tips really may have little to do with the size of the bill or the quality of service--and are to do with vagaries like the weather--or the personality of the tipper. 

"Tipping enables the tip giver to feel power," says Kerry Segrave, author of "Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities." 

Segrave adds, "It reinforces a sense of superiority in a society that says it doesn't believe in classes, and it allows Americans to establish feelings of dominance and superiority over others. It's all about control." 

BERNICE KANNER writes on advertising and marketing from her base in New York and is the author of "The 100 Best TV Commercials...and Why They Worked" (Times Books). Her views are not necessarily those of BridgeNews, whose ventures include the Internet site www.bridge.com. 

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