obesity and incentives

retail sales staff snub corpulent clientele, according to a new study reported by the new york times.

although you'd have to control for store quality (upscale stores likely hire a different variety of clerk), there would likely be significant behavioral differences between stores paying on an hourly rate and those paying on commission. giving staff a stake in their sales may curb their prejudiced behavior because ignoring obese customers on the assumption that they will not buy will result in fewer sales. clerks who ignored the stereotype would likely earn more (and possibly even stay in the job longer because of their higher earnings). clerks on hourly wage, however, have no reason to treat customers differently from their default behavior, as they have no direct stake in daily sales.

prejudiced behavior may still bleed through with commissions, but to a lesser degree.

and, if americans really are becoming more obese (which i am not convinced of), we'll probably see this stereotype effect fade away as people are confronted with the invalidity of this stereotype more often - one upside to the "epidemic," i suppose.

reference: the paper is not published. it's a graduate student paper by eden king, “remediation strategies and consequences of interpersonal discrimination toward obese customers.” eden tells me they did not compare commission vs. hourly pay schedules in this study.

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