Yawning?...?

Question

Why is it that when one person yawns, it makes he next person yawn? It's like a chain reaction...

Answer 1

i just yawned cuz i read it...uhm...i don't..most contageous thing i guess. :)

Answer 2

idk who cares i mean like its monkey c monkey do what one person does the othe does to. why dont you try yawning to your self in the mirror and kthe see if you  yawn again

Answer 3

It's simple.  You yawn to change the air pressure in your skull.  When the air pressure in your skull changes, it changes the air pressure outside your skull to compensate.  When someone is near you and the air pressure changes, they have to yawn so that the air pressure is normal again.

This is total BS, but it sounds good!

Answer 4

A very good question, and one of the great unknowns. In fact, there isn't really a very satisfying theory of why people yawn in the first place. There's definitely a psychological trigger at work - e.g., just reading about yawning is making me yawn.

Answer 5

This is the answer I have been given; As children we learn by mimicking others (mainly or parents) so it is instinctive to copy others behaviours. luckily as Adults we can judge if copying other peoples actions is a good or bad thing to do.

Answer 6

The yawn reflex is often described as contagious: if one person yawns, this will cause another person to "sympathetically" yawn.[4][11] Observing another person's yawning face (especially his/her eyes), or even reading about or thinking about yawning, can cause a person to yawn. You have probably already yawned if you are reading this page. [4] [12] [13] The proximate cause for contagious yawning may lie with mirror neurons, i.e., neurons in the frontal cortex of certain vertebrates, which upon being exposed to a stimulus from conspecific (same species) and occasionally interspecific organisms, activates the same regions in the brain.[14] Mirror neurons have been proposed as a driving force for imitation which lies at the root of much human learning, e.g., language acquisition. Yawning may be an offshoot of the same imitative impulse. A 2007 study found that children with autism spectrum disorder do not increase their yawning frequency after seeing videos of other people yawning, in contrast to typically developing children. This supports the claim that contagious yawning is based on the capacity for empathy.[15]

To look at the issue in terms of evolutionary advantage, if there is one at all, yawning might be a herd instinct.[16] Other theories suggest that the yawn serves to synchronize mood gregarious animals, similar to the howling of the wolf pack. It signals tiredness to other members of the group in order to synchronize sleeping patterns and periods of. This phenomenon has been observed among various primates. The threat gesture is a way of maintaining order in the primates' social structure. Specific studies were conducted on chimpanzees[17] and stumptail macaques[18] A group of these animals was shown a video of other conspecifics yawning; both species yawned as well. This helps to partly confirm a yawn's "contagiousness."

Gordon Gallup, who hypothesizes that yawning may be a means of keeping the brain cool, also hypothesizes that "contagious" yawning may be a survival instinct inherited from our evolutionary past. "During human evolutionary history when we were subject to predation and attacks by other groups, if everybody yawns in response to seeing someone yawn, the whole group becomes much more vigilant, and much better at being able to detect danger."[6]

Answer 7

that just made me yawn hahaha..

i think its all in our minds, since we know its ''contagious'' we believe that we have to yawn after another person.

Answer 8

LOL. That's just psychology. It's nothing really.

Answer 9

LOL right when I seen the question I yawned...