The act of yawning is an involuntary reaction that occurs when one is very tired or bored, already appearing in the fetus, even during pregnancy, being, in these cases, related to brain development.
However, yawning is not always involuntary, it can also occur by a “contagious yawn”, a phenomenon that only appears in humans and in some animals, such as chimpanzees, dogs, mangroves and wolves, occurring every time you hear, see or think of a yawn.
- Although the specific cause of “contagious yawning” is unknown.
- Several studies indicate that the phenomenon may be related to each person’s capacity for empathy.
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- The ability to put themselves in the other’s place.
So when we see someone yawning, our brain imagines they’re in that person’s place and, as a result, ends up triggering a yawn, even if we’re not tired or bored. It’s the same mechanism that happens when you see someone hitting your finger with a hammer and your body contracts in response to the pain that the other person must feel, for example.
In fact, another study has shown that yawning is more contagious in people in the same family, then among friends, then among acquaintances and, finally, strangers, which seems to reinforce the theory of empathy, because there is a greater ease to put ourselves in place of people we already know.
Being infected by someone else’s yawning is very common and almost always inevitable, however, some people do not seem to be affected as easily. The less affected usually have some form of psychiatric disorder such as:
In fact, people with these types of changes generally have more difficulties in social interaction or communication skills and are therefore unable to put themselves in the other person’s shoes, without finally being affected.
However, children under the age of 4 may not have “contagious yawns,” as empathy does not begin to develop until after that age.