Why are yawns so contagious?

Question

Why are yawns so contagious?

Answer 1

Because Yawns are a form of relaxing and when some one else sees a person yawning somthing in the brain justs kicks in that is what you want to do too It's like a reflex motion. Nothing like a good yawn to relax you.

Answer 2

*Yawn*

Because deep down, sleep is what all of us want. Forget money, I'd rather sleep for the rest of my life.  

Answer 3

wish i knew!

it never fails!

i have to yawn when someone else does!

n when i do they give me this silly look!

like i did it on pupose

Answer 4

I actually heard that it's an instinctive thing for humans to yawn if they hear/see somebody else yawn because deep down we take it as them trying to "steal" our air and we don't want them to do that. Weird, I know!

Answer 5

...dont know

Answer 6

ha ha there was a study done on that, several studies actually, and no answers were available. But the reason for yawning is to get oxygen into the bloodstream. If you don't have enough oxygen the obvious reaction is to breath in, but when you are tired you tend to act a bit slower than normal, so you may walk at the same speed, but your breathing will still be slow, so you take in a huge deep breath. The contagious yawning is social though, because in the studies people yawned if they saw, heard, or even read about someone yawning, but when adults yawned in front of babies the babies did not react, because they were not conditioned to it. So it's all learned...hey, I guess they sort of did come up with an answer.