The Sleeper Effect: A Reason for Lost Tips

My co-workers and I recently experienced the sleeper effect in how we are conducting tip distribution in a new restaurant that just opened. The sleeper effect was shown by Hovland and Weiss (1951) when they found that attitudes that come from a non-credible source increase over time. It is the tendency to remember the content of the message but forget that the source was non-credible (Pratkanis et al., 1988). Anyways, there is a cook who works in the kitchen (I will call him George) and is one of the owner's best friends. He is the guy who jokes about anything and everything and makes everyone laugh. The first day of training the manager told us never to take anything George says seriously. However, one of his early jokes caused the employees much confusion once the store opened. As a restaurant all the waiters pull tips so everyone who is at the same level (server 1, 2, or 3) should get the same amount of money on a given night, and all the tips are put on the paycheck at the end of the week. This makes sure everything is claimed and nobody gets in trouble with the IRS, and also it helps the whole restaurant work together as a team. So server 1 makes the most percentage and gets the highest hourly and server 2 gets the second highest and so on and so on. George started a rumor early on in training that all server 1's get 100% of cash tips and we should just pocket it and take it home. At first, we all knew that it was George and we should run it by the manager before actually taking him seriously. However, it slipped our minds and come opening night there were three server 1's on the floor, myself included. At the end of the night each of us had one table pay with cash each and we had the idea in our heads that the cash tips were ours because we had apparently forgotten who had told us this. So we pocketed the cash tips and left for the night we some money in our pockets. The next day at work all three of us were brought into the manager's office and on the desk was the server's manual that had in big bold letters "POCKETING CASH TIPS RESULTS IN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION!" We were all shocked and couldn't think to believe why we thought it was alright to take the cash home, until finally, my co-worker said that George had told us that. Then, it all clicked, we all immediately remembered George telling us and realised it was just a joke gone wrong. So we ended up paying back the cash and we were not penalized for the misunderstanding. However, this is one example that shows that the sleeper effect can cause problems in society, and everyone should always check their sources.

Hovland, C. I., & Weiss, W. (1951). The influence on source credibility on communication
effectiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly, 15, 635-650.

Pratkanis, A. R., Greenwald, A. G., Leippe, M. R., & Baumgardner, M. H. (1988). In search of
reliable persuasion effects: III. The sleeper effect is dead. Long live the sleeper effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 203-218.

College: An Enemy of Repulicans

It is now widely known that people with more education and have been to college tend to be more liberal. This was shown in the classic study by Theodore Newcomb (1943) where he surveyed women and Bennington College in Vermont on their political affiliation. The results showed that the women were more liberal as they advanced in college. I had not realized it really until I started reading about this but college has made me much more liberal as well. I was born in a conservative family and conservatism is definitely in my genes. Attitudes were shown to be genetic by Abraham Tesser (1993) and his identical twins studies. It turns out that identical twins who have been raised apart will have similar attitudes. So, I was a big Bush fan in high school and so were (are) my parents and grandparents. However, since I have been to Southwestern I have taken a few classes on social diversity and have made friends who have different views than what I grew up with. For example, I dated a girl not too long ago who is very liberal. She was constantly watching debates and monitoring the economy. She also was a big Obama fan. I ended watching CSPAN with her often and we discussed politics (which is something I never used to enjoy). I knew from the beginning that I favored Obama, which was weird because if I was in high school I am sure I would be voting for McCain. Anyways, my support for Obama grew greatly just by hanging out with ex and her liberal friends. It was the first time I had really hung out with that kind of crowd on a daily basis but I started to feel very comfortable around them and eventually enjoyed hanging out with them just as much as I enjoyed hanging out with my regular conservative friends. College has given me the opportunity to meet more people and take courses that open my eyes and keep me from being narrow minded. I think this is the reason why I have had a political slide from right to left and is also the reason why I think more educated people become more liberal. So I am a good case study that supports the findings of the Bennington College study (Newcomb, 1943) and I will be voting for Obama, the democratic nominee, despite my background and genetics.

Newcomb, T. M. (1943). Personality and social change: Attitude formation in a student
community. Ft. Worth, TX: Dryden Press.

Tesser, A. (1993). The importance of heritability in psychological research: The case of
attitudes. Psycholigical Review, 100, 129-142.

My IAT Tests

I took both the sexuality and the age IAT tests. On the sexuality test my results were that I had a strong preference for straight people than gay people. This is somewhat consistent with my concsious awareness of the subject in that I know I do have a preference for straight people, just because I grew up in a high school where being called "gay" was the worste insult and people who truly were homosexual were not accepted. However, I would not call my preference "strong." Since I came to Southwestern I have met many gay people and feel perfectly comfortable around them. I think the results are showing my inhibited attitude that I have been trying to change. I was fully aware of this preference in high school but am not so much anymore. I probably obtained these results because of my childhood and I spent alot more time in that community than I have at Southwestern where it is much more liberal. Then I saw the results from others who have taken the test and the majority are in the same category as I was. I did not think that today that would be true, that people still have strong preferences for gay people than straight people. Personally, this is a trait about me that I would like to change, so maybe next time I take this test, my results may be slightly different.

The second test I took, age, showed me that I had a strong preference for young people rather than old. I knew this was true and am very conscious about it. I have worked in fine dining for a few years now and have had to deal with grumpy old people who do not tip. They want everything to be perfect and gripe over the smallest little things. Having to deal with this as long as I have, I am fully aware of my preference for young people. Also, young people are the people I hang out with everyday. Even at my new job, the managers are all younger and I feel much more comfortable there. In my old jobs I would feel less comfortable with older employees than younger even if I had known the older employees longer. I also have a different definition of "old." For example, if a 30 year old is hanging out with us 20 year old and is cracking jokes, acting a little immature, and is having a good time with us, I will feel comfortable with him like a would a young person. On the other hand, if a younger person has a lot of authority and is acting very mature and traditional, I would feel less comfortable with that person. This test has made me aware of how age can effect the way people treat or feel around people of different ages.

I took the sexuality test again and I tried so hard to make it be neutral. I really did think I went just as fast and just as correct with all the situations, but I STILL had a strong preference for straight people. This makes me think that this test is pretty valid, and I actually do have a strong preference for straight people even though I don't really see it. However, like I said before I can believe it because of my background.