ArticleHuman nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)2025
Is it a Match? Yawn Contagion and Smile Mimicry in Toddlers.
Article in Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- 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
- Social engagement modulates wild monkeys' vocal expressions and the behavioral response to that of others.iScience · 2026Article
- Article
- Nuancing 'Emotional' Social Play: Does Play Behaviour Always Underlie a Positive Emotional State?Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Automatic behavioral matching includes Rapid Facial Mimicry (RFM) and Yawn Contagion (YC) that occur when the facial expression of an individual acts as a 'mirror social releaser' and induces the same facial expression in the observer (within 1 s for RFM, and minutes for YC). Motor replication has been linked to coordination and emotional contagion, a basic form of empathy. We investigated the presence and modulating factors of Rapid Smile Mimicry (RSM) and YC in infants/toddlers from 10 to 36 months at the nursery 'Melis' (Turin, Italy). In February-May 2022, we gathered audio and/or video of all occurrences data on affiliative behaviors, smiling during play, and yawning during everyday activities. Both RSM and YC were present, as toddlers were most likely to smile (within 1 s) or yawn (within three-min) after perceiving a smile/yawn from another toddler. Sex, age, and parents' country of origin did not influence RSM and YC occurrence, probably because gonadal maturation was long to come, the age range was skewed towards the early developmental phase, and toddlers had been in the same social group for months. RSM and YC showed social modulation, thus possibly implying more than just motor resonance. Both phenomena were inversely related to affiliation levels (a social bond proxy). Because literature reports that in adults RSM and YC may increase with familiarity, our reversed result suggests that in certain toddler cohorts the same phenomena may help increase socio-emotional coordination and that the function of motoric resonance may be experience- and context-dependent.
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