ArticlePloS one2011
Yawn contagion and empathy in Homo sapiens.
Article in PloS one, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 77 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
77 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 169 citations in OpenAlex.
- Reduced contagious yawning in psychiatric disorders: a systematic review of potential social-cognitive mechanisms.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- SPREAD, a framework and open-source R toolbox to quantify behavioural contagion.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- The play fever: individual and group factors influence the contagion of play behaviour within social hominid groups.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Article
- Action units of facial expressions in emotional contagion.iScience · 2026Article
- Social engagement modulates wild monkeys' vocal expressions and the behavioral response to that of others.iScience · 2026Article
- Implicit leadership and multidimensional imitation: a structural pathway model among Chinese university students.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Article
- Behavioral Contagion in Wild Ecuadorian White-Fronted Capuchins (Cebus aequatorialis).American journal of primatology · 2026Article
- Yawning as Therapy? The Potential of the Conditioned Yawn Reflex as a Novel Treatment for Insomnia Disorder.Journal of sleep research · 2025Article
- Using a bodily illusion to examine the motivational basis of interoceptive hunger cues.Psychological research · 2025Article
- Chimpanzees yawn when observing an android yawn.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Yawning in sync: implications for social cohesion in horses.Current zoology · 2025Article
- Is it a Match? Yawn Contagion and Smile Mimicry in Toddlers.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Yawn Contagion and Modality-Matching in the Female-Bonded Society of Geladas (Theropithecus gelada).American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Tackling Hominin Tickling: Bonobos Share the Social Features and Developmental Dynamics of Play Tickling With Humans.American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Shaping behaviors through social experience and their proposed sensitivity to stress.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2024Review
- Contagious yawning and scratching in captive lemurs.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Beware of Strangers: Dogs' Empathetic Response to Unknown Humans.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- More than a simple fixed action pattern: Yawning in drills.Primates; journal of primatology · 2024Article
- Relationship satisfaction, feelings of closeness and annoyance, and linkage in electrodermal activity.Emotion (Washington, D.C.) · 2023Article
17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.