Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 6; no. 12; p. e28472
• Main Authors: Norscia, Ivan, Palagi, Elisabetta
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 07.12.2011; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Altruism; Analysis; Animal cognition; Autism; Behavior; Biology; Emotions; Empathy; Evolution; Familiarity; Family; Female; Gender; Gender differences; Humans; Imitative Behavior - physiology; Interpersonal Relations; Latency; Male; Medicine; Neurons; Objectives; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Social Behavior; Social factors; Social interactions; Social networks; Trends; Yawning; Yawning - physiology; Yawning behavior; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0028472

The ability to share others' emotions, or empathy, is crucial for complex social interactions. Clinical, psychological, and neurobiological clues suggest a link between yawn contagion and empathy in humans (Homo sapiens). However, no behavioral evidence has been provided so far. We tested the effect of different variables (e.g., country of origin, sex, yawn characteristics) on yawn contagion by running mixed models applied to observational data collected over 1 year on adult (>16 years old) human subjects. Only social bonding predicted the occurrence, frequency, and latency of yawn contagion. As with other measures of empathy, the rate of contagion was greatest in response to kin, then friends, then acquaintances, and lastly strangers. Related individuals (r≥0.25) showed the greatest contagion, in terms of both occurrence of yawning and frequency of yawns. Strangers and acquaintances showed a longer delay in the yawn response (latency) compared to friends and kin. This outcome suggests that the neuronal activation magnitude related to yawn contagion can differ as a function of subject familiarity. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that yawn contagion is primarily driven by the emotional closeness between individuals and not by other variables, such as gender and nationality.