Do bra sizes influence tip sizes in the service industry? With a surprise ending
Kari Byron of Mythbusters fame at the San Diego Comicon in 2010, License: CC 2.0, Original photo by Ray Sampson
Last weekend, I saw an entertaining rerun of a MythBusters segment on the Science Channel. The episode is 10 years old (Season 16, Episode 5), but I hadn't seen it before. I thought the results were surprising enough that it was worth posting about.
In the segment, Kari Byron went under-cover in a coffee shop on three different days in order to test the myth that women with larger breast sizes in the service industry tend to receive larger tips from their male customers.
According to evolutionary theory, the idea is that women with "full cleavage" signal that they have better reproductive potential, and men who find this trait attractive tend to be more successful at reproducing their genes. After millions of years of evolution, this attraction spreads far and wide, and it influences the ways that men behave.
So, here's how the MythBusters experiment went down.
Kari wore the same clothes, wig, and contact lenses every day, worked the same shift at the coffee shop, and gave the same level of service on all three days.
On day 1, she worked the shift with a D bra size, on day 2, she had her chest taped down to a B bra size, and on day 3, she wore DDD prosthetics.
And what did they find?
For day 1 to day 2, when she changed from a D to a B bra size, there was no difference in tips. So, after two days, the myth was under threat of being busted. But then came day 3.
From day 2 to day 3, when her bra size went from B to DDD, her tips went up dramatically. So, we can say that this myth was confirmed. In fact, and not surprisingly, tips from men increased by about 30%.
But here's the surprise ending. Women outspent the men. Kari's tips went up by 40% among the female customers on the day that she was sporting the DDD fake breasts.
I'm not sure how evolutionary biology would explain that. 😉
If you're interested, here's a YouTube summary clip:
Of course, this is just a single experiment, so take it with a grain of salt, but it was an interesting outcome, anyway.
Thank you for your time and attention.
As a general rule, I up-vote comments that demonstrate "proof of reading".
Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.
Pixabay license, source
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While the increased tips from men might align with evolutionary theories about attraction, the women's response is intriguing. Perhaps it reflects a social bias or solidarity. This might raise questions about how appearance influences social interactions and whether subconscious factors drive our behavior more than we realize. Perhaps women responded to confidence or perceived social status more than physical appearance.
This is exactly what I was thinking. They said she'd provide the same level of service on each day, but that's not so easy to quantify. Who knows if the prosthetics changed her level of self-confidence, and produced a corresponding change in behavior... Or maybe she just got better at doing the job on her 3rd day at work(?).
😂 I love Mythbusters!
Me too, except they have way too many ads. Usually, the only way I can make it through an episode is if it's in the DVR buffer and I can fast forward through the breaks. Otherwise, I always wind up flipping the channel and forgetting to go back.
I remember back in like the '70s or '80s when they rolled out monthly payments for Cable TV subscriptions, they told us the tradeoff was that we wouldn't have to watch ads in the future. Oops.
My daughters recently said the same thing to me about streaming services. My response was similar to yours in that I thought, "Oh, I've seen that one before."
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