Why Is Yawning Contagious? Here’s The Amazing Answer

Have you ever wondered why you yawn when you see someone else yawn? Here’s the amazing answer.

That yawning is contagious is not a myth

We yawn when we see someone else yawning. The noise alone can make us yawn. Even dogs were caught opening their mouths when the mistress had a sag and anticipated something.

That yawning is contagious is not a myth. On the contrary, it has even been scientifically proven, as the American neurologist Eliezer J. Sternberg from Yale University Hospital explains in Psychology Today.

Swiss researchers have shown several test persons videos in which yawning people can be seen. As expected, more than 50 percent of the viewers yawned – a typical percentage, according to Sternberg.

Italian researchers have also discovered a connection between the seemingly meaningless mechanism of yawning and fundamental components of human nature.

What yawning has to do with affection

The neuroscientists studied baboons at the zoo and found that the animals most often yawned with their colleagues when they were listening to each other.

Baboons listen to each other when they feel close. The louse is an expression of loving attachment. The more they louse each other, the closer they feel to each other. The scientists noticed that the more connected the animals were, the more infectious the yawning was.

The so-called mirror neurons, which are found in both ape and human brains, are believed to be responsible for the process of imitation.

The study results thus suggest that emotional closeness also has an influence on the frequency of communal yawning in humans. And thus also on the degree of empathy: the ability to imitate something presupposes that one can put oneself in the other’s shoes. The closer you feel to the other person – the more empathic you are – the more often you yawn along. Yawning along is an expression of affection.