General Question

Nimis's avatar

Are yawns contagious across different species?

Asked by Nimis (13260points) September 19th, 2012 from iPhone

Most people yawn when they see another person yawn.
But would they yawn if they saw for instance a dog yawn?

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

9 Answers

serenade's avatar

Yes. That exact thing happened to an old supervisor of mine.

wonderingwhy's avatar

Yep, apparently it even works in reverse. Hell, I can’t even search googles image results for yawning animals and not yawn.

Nimis's avatar

@wonderingwhy I love that there was an actual study done on this.

Kayak8's avatar

If I yawn and my German Shepherd is in the room, he will yawn too.

Coloma's avatar

Hahah…the neighbors horse and I were triggered yawning the other day. She yawned then so did I. How funny!

Brian1946's avatar

Not only is it contagious between different species, it’s also contagious between living and non-living things- reading this thread made me yawn. :-o

I’m not being snarky and saying that I think this thread is boring; it’s just that reading about it actually triggered that response from me. I guess yawning can be a very suggestible reaction.

augustlan's avatar

It made me yawn, too, @Brian1946! I seem to remember a Fluther thread from long ago that showed a video of a yawning bird, and nearly all of us in the thread yawned when we saw it. It does seem to be very suggestible. On a side note, one of my daughters doesn’t have the typical yawn reaction. She can watch 10 people yawning, and never feel the urge to do it herself. I guess it isn’t universally suggestive, huh?

JLeslie's avatar

@augustlan That’s interesting. I never considered that some people are resistant. I tend to buy into the theory that yawns are contagious to help induce rest/sleep in a group at the same time. Maybe your daughter would be the look out. LOL.

I just yawned twice while writing this by the way.

apaster's avatar

If i am remembering correctly the mythbusters team broke that down here.

also for the record just reading the word “yawn” on my screen makes me yawn….

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