Have you ever noticed that we yawn when someone else yawns? Occasionally we yawn when someone else yawns, as a response to shared exhaustion, but most often a matching yawn is due to a phenomenon called emotional contagion.
It's
part of the phenomenon of Isopraxism, the pull towards the same energy that
occurs in nature. Isopraxism explains why birds fly together in formation, fish
swim together in schools, and why we see the wave coming around the football stadium
and say we are not going to do it, but we get pulled into the wave. We pull
towards the same energy to save energy. In human relationships, we tend to
match people we like and feel comfortable being around.
For
years the research on yawning said that matching was not the cause of mutual
yawning, but I disagreed. Now recent research supports the matching hypothesis.
Though the original yawner may yawn because they are tired and or lack oxygen,
the matcher yawns back out of kindness. Steven Platek, a research professor in biomedical
science at Drexel University in Philadelphia did research empathy. He found
highly empathetic people could not help but match someone's yawn.
You
may notice this in Gorillas and great apes match their fellow Gorillas and ape
body language. Not quite a case of monkey see monkey do, more like gorilla see
gorilla do.
So
next time someone matches your yawn, you will know they are a nice empathetic
person. You might want to fake a yawn today, just to see how much people care!
