The Role of Empathic Concern and Gender on Interspecific Contagious Yawning in Humans

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Contagious yawning (CY) has garnered considerable interest in the fields of psychology and animal behavior, particularly as it relates to the potential connection this response has with empathy or emotional contagion. Recent reports have explored this association through the study of interspecific CY, whereby the detection of yawns from one species trigger yawning in a different species. While the evidence for interspecific CY is robust, links to empathy have been inconsistent. Here, we sought to explore this relationship more explicitly in humans by assessing how interspecific CY in response to images of yawns from common household pets relates to individual differences in empathic concern. The results provide further evidence for interspecific CY in humans, but self-reported empathic concern was a negative predictor of this response. We also found no sex difference in interspecific CY, though when comparing the sexes across the CY conditions, women reported a higher frequency of yawning in response to dog yawns, and men reported a higher frequency of yawning in response to cat yawns. Overall, these findings do not support a strong connection between interspecific CY and empathy or emotional contagion. ABSTRACT: Interspecific contagious yawning (CY), whereby yawns from one species trigger yawning in different species, has now been reported across various taxa. This response to human yawning appears common among animals in captivity and has been interpreted as an empathic response towards human handlers/caregivers. A recent study found that humans also display interspecific CY, though this response was not modulated by proxies of empathic processing (i.e., phylogenetic relatedness or social closeness to the animals). Here, we explored this relationship more explicitly by assessing how interspecific CY to yawns from common household pets relates to self-reported empathic concern. Participants (N = 103) completed a survey measuring empathic concern and then reported on their yawning behavior following exposure to a control condition or yawning images either from domesticated cats or domesticated dogs. The results provide further evidence for interspecific CY in humans, but empathic concern was negatively predictive of this response. There was also no sex difference in interspecific CY, though when comparing the sexes across CY conditions, women reported a higher frequency of yawning in response to dog yawns, and men reported a higher frequency of yawning in response to cat yawns. Overall, these findings do not support a strong connection between interspecific CY and empathy or emotional contagion.