You're out to dinner. The food was delicious and the service was fine. You decide to leave a big fat tip - why? The answer may not be as simple as you think.

當你在外面吃飯的時候，食物可口，服務周到，于是你決定留下一筆豐盛的小費——這是為什么呢？答案也許不像你想得那么簡單。

Tipping, psychologists have found, is rarely just about service. Instead, studies have shown tipping can be influenced by psychological reactions to an array of factors ranging from the waiter's choice of words to how they carry themselves while taking orders to the bill's total. Even how much waiters remind customers of themselves can determine how much change they pocket by the end of the night.

心理學家發現，給小費不僅僅是因為服務。研究表明人們給小費會受到對一系列因素產生的心理反應所影響。這些因素包括從服務員的措辭到結帳時他們的舉止。甚至連服務員能在多大程度上讓顧客想到自己也決定了他一天下來能夠拿到多少小費。

"Previous studies have shown that mimicry enhances positive feelings for the mimicker," wrote Rick van Baaren, a social psychology professor at the University of Nikmegen in the Netherlands, in a recent study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. "These studies indicate that people who are being mimicked become more generous toward the person who mimics them."

荷蘭Nikmegen大學的社會心理學教授里克·范·巴倫在《實驗社會心理學》雜志上最近發表的一項研究中寫到：“以前的研究已經表明模仿能夠增加人們對模仿者的好感。這些研究表明被模仿者對模仿自己的人更慷慨大方。”

To detect the benefit of copying the customer, van Baaren and his colleagues surveyed staff in American-styled restaurants in southern Holland. Among a group of 59 waitstaff, van Baaren requested that half respond to diner's meal orders with a positive phrase such as, "Coming up!"

為了弄清模仿消費者的好處，范·巴倫和他的同事們對荷蘭南部美國風味餐館的員工們進行了調查。在一組總共59名服務員中，范·巴倫要求他們中的一半跟點餐者說“就來！”等明確的答復。

Those in the other half were instructed to repeat the orders and preferences back to the customers. Van Baaren then compared their take-home. The results were clear -it pays to imitate your customer. The copycat waiters earned almost double the amount of tip than the other group.

另一半服務員則被要求把顧客點的餐和喜好重復一遍。范·巴倫隨后比較了他們所得的小費，結果很清楚——模仿顧客對服務員有好處。模仿顧客的服務員獲得的小費差不多是另一組服務員所得的兩倍。

Leonard Green and Joel Myerson, psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis, found the generosity of a tipper may be limited by their bill. After compiling data from nearly 1,000 tips left for waiters, cab drivers and hair stylists, they found that tip percentages in all three areas dropped as customers' bills went up.

圣路易斯華盛頓大學的心理學家萊昂納德和喬爾·邁爾森發現，給小費者人是否慷慨可能會受到帳單金額的影響。通過匯總服務員、出租車司機和發型師收到的近1000份小費的數據，他們發現這三個領域中小費的比例都隨著顧客帳單金額的上升而下降。

In fact, tip percentages appear to plateau when bills topped 0 and a bill for 0 garnered the worker no bigger percentage tip than a bill for 0.
    

當帳單超過100美元后，小費的比例變化不明顯。一筆200美元的消費對于服務員來說獲得小費的比例并不比100美元的消費高。

Why? Green has his theories, including one he attributes to an old Woody Allen saying: "Eighty percent of success in life is showing up."

這是為什么呢？格林有他自己的理論，其中的一條他總結為伍迪·艾倫的名言：“生活中80%的成功是自我表現。”

"That's also a point of tipping," Green says. "You have to give a little extra to the cab driver for being there to pick you up and something to the waiter for being there to serve you. If they weren't there you'd never get any service. So I think part of the idea of a tip is for just being there."

格林說：“這一點對于給小費來說也很重要。對于接你的出租車司機和為你服務的服務員，你不得不給一點額外的小費。如果他們不存在，你就得不到任何服務，所以我認為給小費一部分是因為他們的存在。”

Green explains since everyone would earn the "just being there" tip, it's inevitable that portion would make up a larger percentage of smaller bills.

格林解釋說，既然每個人都會獲得“因為存在”的那部分小費，所以小費在較小金額的消費中必然占較大的比例。