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.

当你在外面吃饭的时候，食物可口，服务周到，于是你决定留下一笔丰盛的小费——这是为什么呢？答案也许不像你想得那么简单。

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.

心理学家发现，给小费不仅仅是因为服务。研究表明人们给小费会受到对一系列因素产生的心理反应所影响。这些因素包括从服务员的措辞到结账时他们的举止。甚至连服务员能在多大程度上让顾客想到自己也决定了他一天下来能够拿到多少小费。

"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."

荷兰Nikmegen大学的社会心理学教授里克•范•巴伦在《实验社会心理学》杂志上最近发表的一项研究中写到：“以前的研究已经表明模仿能够增加人们对模仿者的好感。这些研究表明被模仿者对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!"

为了弄清模仿消费者的好处，范•巴伦和他的同事们对荷兰南部美国风味餐馆的员工们进行了调查。在一组总共59名服务员中，范•巴伦要求他们中的一半跟点餐者说“就来！”等明确的答复。

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.

另一半服务员则被要求把顾客点的餐和喜好重复一遍。范•巴伦随后比较了他们所得的小费，结果很清楚——模仿顾客对服务员有好处。模仿顾客的服务员获得的小费差不多是另一组服务员所得的两倍。

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.

圣路易斯华盛顿大学的心理学家莱昂纳德和乔尔•迈尔森发现，给小费者人是否慷慨可能会受到帐单金额的影响。通过汇总服务员、出租车司机和发型师收到的近1000份小费的数据，他们发现这三个领域中小费的比例都随着顾客帐单金额的上升而下降。

In fact, tip percentages appear to plateau when bills topped 100 and a bill for 200 garnered the worker no bigger percentage tip than a bill for 100.

当帐单超过100美元后，小费的比例变化不明显。一笔200美元的消费对于服务员来说获得小费的比例并不比100美元的消费高。

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

这是为什么呢？格林有他自己的理论，其中的一条他总结为伍迪•艾伦的名言：“生活中80%的成功是自我表现。”

"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."

格林说：“这一点对于给小费来说也很重要。对于接你的出租车司机和为你服务的服务员，你不得不给一点额外的小费。如果他们不存在，你就得不到任何服务，所以我认为给小费一部分是因为他们的存在。”

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.

格林解释说，既然每个人都会获得“因为存在”的那部分小费，所以小费在较小金额的消费中必然占较大的比例。