You might have been in a situation where you see someone yawning and a few seconds later you also yawn and you never really paid much attention to it.
It’s also possible that you might have heard that yawns are contagious, but are they really? Well, according to experts, recent studies show that people are more likely to experience contagious yawning with their closest acquaintances than with strangers.
The Houston Methodist publication states that although the exact meaning of yawning remains unknown, some researchers speculate that its infectious quality might potentially serve as a means of empathetic communication and matching of emotional states. “In the context of the brain-cooling theory of yawning, perhaps yawning evolved to become contagious as a means to increase the cognitive performance and vigilance of people within a group.”
Cleveland Clinic claims that a 2011 study discovered that “Both spontaneous and contagious yawns arise out of an underlying mechanism involved in regulating your brain’s temperature.” It is further mentioned that contagious yawning in particular, is essentially this: If you yawn after witnessing someone else yawn, it is probably because you are in the same place with a similar climate, therefore your two brains are reacting to a change in temperature in turn.
Furthermore, the clinic states that another study found that contagious yawning sometimes “May be a part of synchronized group behaviour — as yawning helps alert or ‘wake up’ the body, our bodies may respond to others yawning as a way to protect ourselves.”
One other reason why a person would yawn just by seeing another one doing so is social mirroring as explained by Real Simple. The publication details that social mirroring involves unconsciously imitating others’ feelings to form deeper bonds with them. “Studies have shown yawning triggers the ‘mirror neurons’ in the right posterior inferior frontal gyrus of the brain, which are activated when performing goal-directed behaviour for true imitation, making the yawning reflex physically impossible to resist as our brains are wired not to.
Also see: How to sleep peacefully at night without overthinking
