Waitresses' Hair Color and Customers' Tipping Behavior: Blondes Receive more Tips from Men but not from Women

C?line Jacob and Nicolas Gu

Abstract

Waitresses’ Hair Color and Customers’ Tipping Behavior: Blondes Receive more Tips from Men but not from Women The study of the effect of women’s hair color on people’s behavior has revealed discrepant results, which could be explained by many methodological differences and confounding variables in the literature on this topic. For this study, the effect of hair color on behavior was experimentally tested in a tipping context. Two waitresses in one restaurant located in Brittany, France, were instructed to wear blond, brown, or dark colored wigs. The effect of hair color on tipping according to the patrons’ gender was measured. It was found that the waitresses wearing blond wigs received more tips but only from male patrons. Waitresses’ hair color had no effect on women’s tipping behavior.