Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Contagious Yawning Works
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
- 0:08Speaker 1: from how stuff Works dot Com? Hi, and welcome to
- 0:12Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff writer here at
- 0:15Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com with me or two of
- 0:17Speaker 1: my favorite editors, Chris Palette and Candice Gibson. Are you
- 0:21Speaker 1: guys today doing all right? Candice? What about you? That was?
- 0:27Speaker 1: That was a yawn from Candice? And actually I strangely
- 0:31Speaker 1: feel like yawning right now, which reminds me of an
- 0:34Speaker 1: article I wrote once. It's called does contagious yawning Mean
- 0:37Speaker 1: You're nice? Are you guys familiar with this? Yeah, it's
- 0:41Speaker 1: pretty amazing to think that something we don't know much about,
- 0:43Speaker 1: like yawning, could actually be passed on because you see
- 0:47Speaker 1: somebody on and you have an empathetic feeling toward that person. Yeah,
- 0:51Speaker 1: and it's kind of amazing, Candice. Yeah. And not only
- 0:54Speaker 1: is yawning a strange phenomenon, Empsy is pretty strange too,
- 0:57Speaker 1: depending on how it's expressed. And empathy, just to bring
- 1:00Speaker 1: you up to speed is just essentially the way that
- 1:03Speaker 1: you're relating to another person that shows that you're trying
- 1:05Speaker 1: to experience the feelings that they're experiencing, be them, you know,
- 1:08Speaker 1: positive or negative. UM. Empathy just shows that you're in
- 1:12Speaker 1: tune of what the other person is doing. You can
- 1:14Speaker 1: identify with them, you can put yourself in their shoes,
- 1:16Speaker 1: and a nutshell, perfect nutshell. That's pretty much the link
- 1:20Speaker 1: that people. Well, researchers have concluded that that we yawn
- 1:24Speaker 1: contagiously or were susceptible the contagious yawning because we feel empathy.
- 1:29Speaker 1: But that's pretty much where the solid explanations go. And
- 1:32Speaker 1: Candice is actually yawning. I can't get over it. I'm
- 1:36Speaker 1: just that nice. But you know, I did want to
- 1:39Speaker 1: tell you guys a little bit about yawning and some
- 1:41Speaker 1: of the theories that are floating around out there about it.
- 1:43Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't just mean you're what sleepy board
- 1:47Speaker 1: all the above, that's true. It could it could be
- 1:50Speaker 1: a number of things. Um. Some researchers have even gone
- 1:53Speaker 1: so far as to suggest that it could be a
- 1:56Speaker 1: little bit like your teeth or you're not your teeth,
- 1:59Speaker 1: your dog's tea when they he or she is baring
- 2:01Speaker 1: their teeth, the show anger or you know, they're being defensive.
- 2:04Speaker 1: They're saying, you know, maybe you are doing this you know,
- 2:08Speaker 1: subliminal response that you are going, you know, don't mess
- 2:11Speaker 1: with me. Yeah, don't mess with me exactly. And uh,
- 2:14Speaker 1: you know, people have even said that they can yawn
- 2:16Speaker 1: at their dog and their dog will yawn back. So
- 2:18Speaker 1: maybe the maybe it's something there to that theory. So
- 2:21Speaker 1: have they found in studies that people yawn when their
- 2:24Speaker 1: dogs bear their teeth at them? Um, you know, I
- 2:27Speaker 1: didn't see anything suggesting that, to be honest with you,
- 2:30Speaker 1: but uh, but it is interesting to know what I mean. Um,
- 2:34Speaker 1: I think you were saying earlier that uh, it may
- 2:38Speaker 1: actually be linked to a fight or flight response. Um,
- 2:41Speaker 1: and that you know when you put it that way,
- 2:43Speaker 1: that it's not so uh not so strange. Sure, we
- 2:47Speaker 1: were talking about the African savannah, the fight, the fight
- 2:50Speaker 1: or flight response you mean, right, well, yeah, there's a
- 2:53Speaker 1: theory that um, contagious yawning. Well, since you yawn maybe
- 2:57Speaker 1: to make yourself more alert, which would be ful when
- 3:00Speaker 1: you feel fear. Yeah, it's because it carries blood to
- 3:03Speaker 1: your brain right now, alert exactly. And if you feel
- 3:07Speaker 1: fierce safe because the lions approaching and you yawned a response. Uh,
- 3:11Speaker 1: through empathy, a fellow member of your species could pick
- 3:15Speaker 1: up that yawn and pass it along, and before you know,
- 3:18Speaker 1: if there's no one there for the lion to eat,
- 3:20Speaker 1: because they've all got adult, they got out of there.
- 3:24Speaker 1: Another theory has to do with the eyes as cues.
- 3:28Speaker 1: Have you guys heard about this the eyes? Have it? Actually?
- 3:32Speaker 1: A researcher that I read about did a study to
- 3:36Speaker 1: try and since the yawning his contagious, he wanted to
- 3:38Speaker 1: try and find a yawn that would would get everybody,
- 3:40Speaker 1: and the best he could do was about people who
- 3:44Speaker 1: when he'd cover up the mouth, um the eyes still
- 3:47Speaker 1: made people yawned, because he assumed that it was the big,
- 3:49Speaker 1: wide open mouth and the stretch that made people want
- 3:52Speaker 1: to yawn. But when he covered up the eyes and
- 3:53Speaker 1: just showed the mouth by itself, he got a slightly
- 3:56Speaker 1: less response. And he never could find a yawn that
- 3:58Speaker 1: was the perfect storm, one that would have always make
- 4:01Speaker 1: people yawned. So it seems like it's the eyes right
- 4:04Speaker 1: buy into that, because it's not like the parts of
- 4:06Speaker 1: your face don't work in conjunction with each other. When
- 4:08Speaker 1: I smile, my eyes crinkle or you know when I sneeze,
- 4:11Speaker 1: sign my news scrunches up. Everything sort of works in
- 4:14Speaker 1: conjunction with each other. So I totally buy that. And
- 4:17Speaker 1: another theory I buy is that people yawned because their
- 4:20Speaker 1: bodies aren't getting enough oxygen. And that's a quick way
- 4:22Speaker 1: to gulp a whole lot of air right in. It's
- 4:24Speaker 1: just open your mouth as well as it can go
- 4:26Speaker 1: and get it inside. And if others see you daring this,
- 4:29Speaker 1: they might take a cue that their environment isn't supplying
- 4:32Speaker 1: them with enough oxygen either, so they yawn just when
- 4:35Speaker 1: you do. Apparently, the fact that the eyes are served
- 4:41Speaker 1: as a cue for contagious yawning, it's supported by a
- 4:44Speaker 1: study of autistics or people with autism. Um that they
- 4:49Speaker 1: showed slides of people yawning, but they were shown just
- 4:53Speaker 1: the just the mouths. And apparently people with autism get
- 4:57Speaker 1: their cues from people's eyes. Uh, and they had no
- 5:00Speaker 1: action to it whatsoever. Um. Well, yeah, which is interesting,
- 5:05Speaker 1: and we know just sort of general science that people
- 5:08Speaker 1: with autism have um a little bit less of an
- 5:12Speaker 1: understanding of people's verbal or non verbal cues and said,
- 5:16Speaker 1: it's interesting that they didn't get both parts work in
- 5:18Speaker 1: conjunction to have an empathetic response, but that they just
- 5:21Speaker 1: responded to the eyes. Well, it's it's going to require
- 5:25Speaker 1: more study. And if you're interested in studying this for yourself,
- 5:27Speaker 1: you know what we suggestion as you start with does
- 5:29Speaker 1: contagious yawning mean you're nice? That's available on how stuff
- 5:32Speaker 1: works dot com. We're all gonna go take maps. For
- 5:37Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
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