Virtually everyone has “caught” a yawn from someone else at least once in your life. More than likely, this has happened several times to you, friends, and family. Have you ever wondered if yawns are contagious? The answer is they are!

One theory of contagious yawns, claims that the spreading of yawns is due to suggestibility. According to science.howstuffworks.com, you don’t need to actually see a person yawn to involuntarily yawn yourself. Hearing someone yawn or even reading about yawning can cause the same reaction.

An additional theory concerning contagious yawning shows that the phenomenon is also related to our predisposition toward empathy; the ability to understand and connect with the emotional state of other people. Empathy is an important part of cognitive development. We learn from an early age to value ourselves based on the amount and type of empathy our parents display. Developmental psychologists have found that people who were not shown empathy by their parents struggle socially later on in life.

Leeds University in England, decided to test this theory.  In their study, researchers selected 40 psychology students and 40 engineering students. Each student was made to wait individually in a waiting room, along with an undercover assistant who yawned 10 times in a minute. The students were then administered an emotional quotient test where Students were shown 40 images of eyes and asked what emotion each one displayed. The results of the test support the idea that contagious yawning is linked to empathy. The psychology students (whose future profession requires them to focus on others) yawned contagiously an average of 5.5 times in the waiting room and scored 28 out of 40 on the emotional test. The engineering students (who tend to focus on things like numbers and systems) yawned an average of 1.5 times and scored 25.5 out of 40 on the following test.

Although the emotional test scores were a close call, the social aspect of yawning was clear. Contagious yawning is associated with the same parts of the brain that deal with empathy.

FSA Connection

1. How many times did you yawn while reading the article?
2. Did you notice if your classmates yawned too?
3. Did your teacher yawn?
4. Do you believe that yawning can be related to how social you are? Why? (empathy)
5. What would you have done differently in the experiment? Why? (or why would you not have changed it)