Realism in Experimentation

1. Define key variables.

1. Create an operational definition (i.e., a clear description of exactly what a researcher means by a concept) of online restaurant reviews.
   1. For the purposes of this experiment, online restaurant reviews are reviews provided on a website that offer diners’ insights into the restaurant.
      1. A positive review is one that gives a general rating of 4 stars (out of 5) or higher and also compliments the service.
      2. A negative review is one that gives a general rating of 2 stars (out of 5) or lower and also criticizes the service.
2. Create an operational definition of tip amount.
   1. For purposes of this experiment, tip amount is defined as the amount of money the participant allocates to the server in paying the bill.

2. Conduct the study.

1. Welcome participants at the lab door, which is set-up as the “Hawk Villa” restaurant.
   1. Dress and act like a restaurant server (e.g., wear white shirt and black apron, folded at waist).
2.  Sit participant down at a table.
3. Provide participant with informed consent, a brief description of the research (influences on spending behavior), a sense of the procedure, an indication of potential risks/benefits, the right of withdrawal at any time, and a manner to get help if they experience discomfort.
4. Give participant a wallet containing $136.10 (3-$20, 4-$10, 5-$5, 10-$1, and $1.10 in coins).
5. Independent variable = restaurant review
   1. Say to participant: “Before you dine, to give you a bit more context, I thought you’d like to see the most recent online review of our restaurant.”
   2. Provide participant with the positive review (Figure 1).
   
   
   Figure 1. Positive restaurant review. This review was shown to participants in the positive review group.
6. Play a video depicting a subpar dining scene.
   1. Instruct the participant to imagine themselves as one of the diners in the video and to imagine that the researcher is the server in the video.
7. Dependent variable = the bill
   1. Return with the bill (Figure 2) placed in a restaurant billfold and say: “Here is your bill. I’ll take that when you’re ready.”
      
      Figure 2. Restaurant receipt. This bill was given to all participants at the end of watching the dining scene.
   2. After the participant places money in billfold, return and ask, “do you need any change?”   
      1. Participant responds, “No thanks. Keep the change.”

3. Debrief

1.  Report the nature of the study.
   1. “Thank you for participating. In this study I was trying to determine if reading an online restaurant review influences how much a person tips. There were two conditions, both of which watched the same video of subpar service. However, one group read a positive online review, while the other read a negative online review. We hypothesized that the group who read the positive online review would be more forgiving of the subpar service and give a higher tip.”
2. Explain explicitly why the experiment was run this way.
   1. “We want to tell you why we ran this study this way. First, we couldn’t explicitly tell you that we were studying online reviews because it may have affected how you tipped. We also had to run this study in a laboratory setting because, as you can easily imagine, a real restaurant would not want to be part of a study involving subpar service where the key variable was their online reviews (particularly the negative ones).”

4. Conduct sections 2 and 3 with a new participant.

1. Provide the negative review (Figure 3).
   
   Figure 3. Negative restaurant review. This review was shown to participants in the negative review group.
2. Everything else should be the same.

5. Data Analysis

1. Count the money the participant placed in the billfold.
2. Use a calculator to subtract the bill total ($44.67) from the amount the participant left.
   1. $55.00 in the positive condition = $10.33 tip
   2. $45.00 in the negative condition = $0.33 tip
3. Calculate tip percentage.
   1. Positive = 23%
   2. Negative = 0.7%