This dissertation examines aspects of both the consumer (the "give") and the server (the "take") sides of restaurant tipping. On the consumer side, I address both why, and how much, people tip in restaurants. I also examine a policy issue related to the recent Supreme Court decision in United States v. Fior d'Italia. These issues are addressed via a combination of theoretical, empirical, and experimental analysis. On the server side, I use survey data collected from several restaurants to address the issue of labor market discrimination based on beauty. Specifically, do more attractive servers earn higher tips than less attractive servers? I argue that a tipping data set offers several advantages over data sets used in previous studies of the beauty wage gap. This dissertation was funded by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Enhancement Grant (NSF #427347). / Ph. D.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the influences of industry dynamic factors (e.g., peer selections) on a client’s subsequent decision to select the type of auditor (e.g., Big N versus non-Big N), following auditor turnover. More specifically, drawing on social norms and social learning theories, I develop testable implications and investigate whether and how industry dynamics have an incremental power in explaining auditor choice beyond traditional firm-specific variables documented in prior research. Using a large sample from years 1988 – 2012, I find that clients are more likely to imitate their industry peers’ prior selections to select the type of their succeeding auditors, consistent with the implications of social learning theory. I also find that clients in industries with stronger industry norms, as measured by a greater proportion of clients audited by Big N auditors in an industry, are more likely to select Big N auditors as their succeeding auditors, consistent with the implications of social norms theory. To my best knowledge, this is the first study to explore the impact of social dynamics measured at the industry level on auditor selection and provide large-sample evidence on the relations between industry dynamics and auditor selection at the firm level. Findings of this study provide insights into the dynamic process of auditor selection in which companies do not make auditor-selection decisions in isolation of one another as often posited in existing literature, contribute to the research on the determinants of auditor choice by incorporating industry dynamics into an agent-principal model, and provide a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon of auditor selection.

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published_or_final_version / abstract / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Using Taiwanese data this dissertation attempts to test five criminological theories against one another. Alternative models are derived from social control, strain, differential association, power-control, and conflict theories to obtain a critical test. Furthermore, social control, strain, differential association, and power-control theories assume the causes of official delinquency will be the same as the causes of self-reported delinquency. Conflict theory, focusing on judicial judgements, has been applied mainly to official delinquency. Various statistical techniques--crosstabulation, Pearson correlation, factor analyses, logit regression, ordinary least squares regression, and Chi-squares difference test computed from EQS--are used to identify the equations. These five theories are presumed to apply in the entire sample and in a male sample. The data show that social control theory and conflict theory are partly supported, but differential association, power control and strain theories are not. The best fitting model suggested in this analysis for an Asian society is comparable to prior models found in studies in the United States and Canada.

In many online communities, users reveal innovative and potentially valuable intellectual property (IP) under conditions that entail the risk of theft and imitation. Where there is rivalry and formal IP law is not effective, this would lead to underinvestment or withholding of IP, unless user-organized norms compensate for these shortcomings. This study is the first to explore the characteristics and functioning of such a norms-based IP system in the setting of anonymous, large-scale, and loose-knit online communities. In order to do so, we use data on the Threadless crowdsourcing community obtained through netnography, a survey, and a field experiment. On this basis, we identify an integrated system of well-established norms that regulate the use of IP within this community. We analyze the system's characteristics and functioning, and we find that the "legal certainty" it provides is conducive to cooperation, cumulative effects, and innovation. We generalize our findings from the case by developing propositions aimed to spark further research. These propositions focus on similarities and differences between norms-based IP systems in online and offline settings, and the conditions that determine the existence of norms-based IP systems as well as their form and effectiveness in online communities. In this way, we contribute to the literatures on norms-based IP systems and online communities and offer advice for the management of crowdsourcing communities.

OBJECTIVE: The current study explored the applicability of the social norms approach to a new domain of study: psychological help-seeking. A number of questions that must be answered to determine whether the social norms model can be applied effectively to the help-seeking domain guided the study. METHOD: Data were collected from freshmen at five colleges and universities in the Mid-Atlantic region (N = 3021) during freshman orientation week. The study used a cross sectional design to examine personal attitudes and behaviors related to help-seeking as well as perceptions about others’ attitudes and behaviors related to help-seeking. RESULTS: Most participants reported that they were willing to seek help and viewed seeking help as a personal strength rather than personal weakness. However, discrepancies between “reality” and perception indicate that most freshmen in this sample misperceived reality. Most participants underestimated the extent to which peers are accepting of seeking psychological help and most participants were not accurate in their perceptions of peer help seeking behaviors. This misperception significantly influenced personal willingness to seek help. CONCLUSIONS: The data indicate that the social norms method of intervention is applicable to the domain of help seeking and efforts to reduce stigma. Implications, next steps for future research, and limitations of the current study are discussed.

The dissertation attempts to answer the question of how to theorize resistance from within the philosophy of social science. To answer this question we must consider more than just the philosophy of social science; we also must look to political and moral philosophy. Resistance to the social norms of one’s community is possible to theorize from within the philosophy of social science once we develop a sufficiently nuanced account of social and moral communities (which involves identifying political and moral elements in community formation, reformation, and transformation), according to which membership in a community is not defined by sharing judgments, conceptual frameworks, or comprehensive worldviews, but by sharing terms of discourse so that discussion about judgments, conceptual frameworks, and comprehensive worldviews is possible. Understanding the structure of one’s moral community is not the same as to endorsing that structure. This suggests that contestation is already present within communities about what ‘we’ do, up to and including who ‘we’—as a ‘community’—are. Challenging communitarian understandings of what makes a community a community (usually construed as ‘cultures’, understood somewhat monolithically), I argue that communities are best understood as forming around common concerns or perceptions of problems (sometimes veridical, sometimes not). This contestation plays a major role in determining the identities of communities, and these identities are constantly shifting.

This qualitative study is about New Zealand couples who, by choice, do not have children. Strong social norms exist for couples to have children, and those who express a desire to do otherwise have been disbelieved, pressured, and stereotyped. Womanhood has continued to be associated with motherhood, and a maternal instinct is expected to drive women to have children. The aim of this research was to add to knowledge and awareness of how childfree people have experienced being stereotyped, pressured and harassed for being childfree. For this research, I conjointly interviewed ten heterosexual, childfree couples residing in the city of Hamilton. Participants self-identified as childfree, and ranged in age from 23 to 56 years old. Five of the couples also participated in a focus group. Participants related the ways in which they perceived that the wider social context played a role in the negative responses they experienced. Participants revealed how they felt less socially valued through: an idealization of parenthood, exclusion from work benefits, and an expectation that women should manage both employment and motherhood. Stereotyping was found to still occur, with participants reporting that they were labelled as selfish, immature, and anti-children. Stereotypes of being destined for loneliness in later life, and of their pets being substitutes for children were common. Some evidence was found in participants' comments that there were elements of truth in stereotypes of the childfree. The negative stereotyping appeared to have little, if any, impact on how participants viewed or felt about themselves. Participants reported feeling harassed by other people's disbelief in their choice, and assumptions, that despite what they said, everybody wanted children. The pressures experienced by participants took various forms, such as persistent questioning, and came from various sources, including siblings and acquaintances. Participants' reports of feeling pressured or harassed seem to reflect minor and fleeting feelings, rather than a continuing concern. How pressuring comments were perceived by the recipient was very context-dependent. Participants tolerated and coped with people's negative responses by various methods, such as confronting, ignoring, and avoiding the topic of children with certain people. I recommend that further research be done, and that work is needed to promote both acceptance of the childfree option, and freedom of women's identification from association with childbearing.