Why yawning is no insult... it's a sign that someone really cares
By Fiona Macrae for the Daily Mail
Updated:
Yawn: Scientists believe far from being a sign of boredom the gesture can signal empathy
When your friend stifles a yawn as you chat, don’t be offended. Instead, take it as a compliment.
For, far from being a sign of boredom, yawning may signal empathy.
Scientists believe that contagious yawning – yawning after someone else does – is a sign of being keenly interested in the first person’s thoughts and feelings.
This is the theory of Italian researchers who observed more than 100 men and women from four continents as they went to work, ate in restaurants and sat in waiting rooms.
When one of the volunteers yawned, the researchers noted whether anyone within a 10ft radius ‘caught’ the yawn – that is, yawned within the next three minutes.
Their results showed that race and gender had no effect on whether the uncontrollable urge to yawn was passed on. But how well the two people knew each other did.
A reciprocal yawn was most likely to occur among family members, then friends, then acquaintances. The phenomenon was least common among strangers, the journal PLoS ONE reports.
RELATED ARTICLES
- Previous
- 1
- Next
The University of Pisa team concluded that contagious yawning is driven by how emotionally close we are to someone and so how likely we are to empathise with them.
They say there are other reasons to link yawning with empathy.
Contagious: Even animals can 'catch a yawn' with top of the yawners being a Border Collie
Why yawning is no insult... it's a sign that someone really cares
For instance, we start to ‘catch’ yawns from the age of four or five, around the time when we develop the ability to identify each other’s emotions properly.
Studies also show that those susceptible to contagious yawning are better at inferring what others are thinking from their faces.
Most animals, including snakes and fish yawn, but it is only contagious in humans and chimps and, according to a recent study, dogs.
Scrutiny of 29 dogs placed in a room with a yawning man found that 21 - or 72 per cent - also started to yawn.
Top of the yawners was a Border Collie, fitting in five yawns in the space of a few minutes.
The researchers, from the University of London's Birbeck College, said the skill may allow the pet to build stronger bonds with their owners.
