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Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens

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 e...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Norscia, Ivan, Palagi, Elisabetta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3233580/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22163307
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0028472
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author Norscia, Ivan
Palagi, Elisabetta
author_facet Norscia, Ivan
Palagi, Elisabetta
author_sort Norscia, Ivan
collection PubMed
description 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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spelling pubmed-32335802011-12-12 Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens Norscia, Ivan Palagi, Elisabetta PLoS One Research Article 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. Public Library of Science 2011-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC3233580/ /pubmed/22163307 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0028472 Text en Norscia, Palagi. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Norscia, Ivan
Palagi, Elisabetta
Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens
title Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens
title_full Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens
title_fullStr Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens
title_full_unstemmed Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens
title_short Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens
title_sort yawn contagion and empathy in homo sapiens
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3233580/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22163307
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0028472
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