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7 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Abstract
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Two experiments to test the idea that mimicry leads to prosocial behavior. The hypothesis was that mimicking the verbal behavior of customers would increase the size of tips. In Experiment 1, a waitress mimicked half of her customers by literally repeating their orders. It was found that she received significantly larger tips when she mimicked her customers than when she did not. In Experiment 2, in addition to mimicry and non-mimicry condition a baseline was included in which the average tip was assessed prior to the experiment. The results indicated that compared to the baseline, mimicry leads to larger tips. These results demonstrate that mimicry can be advantageous for the imitator because it can make people more generous.
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Experiment 1: Method
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In a 1x2 BETWEEN subject experiment, a waitress either mimicked or did not mimic her customers order verbatim. Afterwards, the size of the tip was assessed. There were 60 groups of customers (30 in each condition), on average, groups were 2.5 people in size. Waitress was aware of the hypothesis of the experiment.
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Experiment 1: Results
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Groups in the mimicry condition gave a larger tip, on average, than the groups in the non-mimicry condition. Even when size of group and size of check were controlled, the results were still the same.
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Experiment 1: Discussion
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Confirmed hypothesis that mimicry increased tipping. Increased the tip by 68%. The waitress was not blind to the hypothesis. The second study used a naive waitress. It was unclear in Experiment 1 whether the tip increased when customer was mimicked or decreased when customer was not mimicked.
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Experiment 2: Method
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In a 1x3 BETWEEN subject experiment, a waitress either mimicked, did not mimic her customers order verbatim, and a baseline. Also ran 30 groups in each condition, but 21 groups in the baseline. Same as Experiment 1, with 3 exceptions: Naive waitress (unaware of hypothesis), waitress wrote down each order in addition to verbal responses, and a baseline condition was established before the experiment by registering the average tip that she received in general. By doing this, they addressed the three main limitations of Experiment 1.
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Experiment 2: Results
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Waitress received the tip significantly more often in mimicry condition. Naive vs. knowledgeable waitress did not appear to make a difference on the experiment. That naive waitress did not get worse tips for not mimicking, only better tips when you DO mimic.
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Experiment 2: Discussion
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Verbal mimicry is a more effective way of giving the impression of paying more attention.
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