• Question: Why do we yawn, and is yawning contagious?

    Asked by 317yttc25 to Rebecca, Hayley on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Very interesting! I think it’s a form of empathy. Sometimes when we see someone who’s sad, it makes us feel sad as well. Or somebody around us laughs, it makes us want to laugh too. I think yawning is contagious for similar reasons, it’s a form of social behaviour and bonding with other people.

    • Photo: Rebecca Jones

      Rebecca Jones answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      There a number of hypotheses about why we yawn. One is that when we are tired or bored we yawn to increase our oxygen consumption and remove carbon dioxide, making us ‘feel’ more awake. Another theory is that it helps to cool the brain to help us think clearer.

      This has been debated for a while but it is now thought that the second theory, that we yawn to cool down our brains, is the reason for us yawning.

      Also, yawns are contagious and this can also be related to temperature. People are more likely to yawn contagiously when in a warm environment. It’s interesting that dogs even learn to yawn when we do too, although this isn’t for the same reasons. It’s thought that dogs can ‘catch our yawns’, even when they just hear the sound of someone yawning!, because they ’empathise’ with us. We seem to be training our animals to respond to human activities because of our strong bond with them!

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