Contagious yawning, social cognition, and arousal: an investigation of the processes underlying shelter dogs’ responses to human yawns

Studies of contagious yawning have reported inconsistent findings regarding whether dogs exhibit this behavior and whether it is mediated by social-cognitive processes or the result of physiological arousal. We investigated why some dogs yawn in response to human yawns; particularly, whether these dogs are exceptional in their ability to understand human social cues or whether they were more physiologically aroused. Sixty shelter dogs were exposed to yawning and nonyawning control stimuli demonstrated by an unfamiliar human. We took salivary cortisol samples before and after testing to determine the role of arousal in yawn contagion. Dogs were tested on the object-choice task to assess their sensitivity for interpreting human social cues. We found that 12 dogs yawned only in response to human yawns (i.e., appeared to exhibit yawn contagion), though contagious yawning at the population level was not observed. Dogs that exhibited yawn contagion did not perform better on the object-choice task than other dogs, but their cortisol levels remained elevated after exposure to human yawning, whereas other dogs had reduced cortisol levels following yawning stimuli relative to their baseline levels. We interpret these findings as showing that human yawning, when presented in a stressful context, can further influence arousal in dogs, which then causes some to yawn. Although the precise social-cognitive mechanisms that underlie contagious yawning in dogs are still unclear, yawning between humans and dogs may involve some communicative function that is modulated by context and arousal.     

Auditory contagious yawning in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris): first evidence for social modulation

Dogs' capacity to 'catch' human yawns has recently attracted the attention of researchers in the field of animal cognition. Following recent studies suggesting that contagion yawning in humans, and some other primates, is empathy-related, some authors have considered the possibility that the same mechanism may underlie contagious yawning in dogs. To date, however, no positive evidence has been found, and more parsimonious hypotheses have been put forward. The present study explored the 'contagion-only' hypothesis by testing whether the mere sound of a human yawn can be sufficient to elicit yawning in dogs, in a way that is unaffected by social-emotional factors. Unexpectedly, results showed an interesting interplay between contagion and social effects. Not only were dogs found to catch human yawns, but they were also found to yawn more at familiar than unfamiliar yawns. Although not allowing for conclusive inferences about the mechanisms underlying contagious yawning in dogs, this study provides first data that renders plausible empathy-based, emotionally connected, contagious yawning in these animals.     

No evidence for contagious yawning in lemurs

Among some haplorhine primates, including humans, relaxed yawns spread contagiously. Such contagious yawning has been linked to social bonds and empathy in some species. However, no studies have investigated contagious yawning in strepsirhines. We conducted an experimental study of contagious yawning in strepsirhines, testing ring-tailed and ruffed lemurs (n = 24) in a paradigm similar to one that has induced contagious yawning in haplorhines. First, in a control experiment, we investigated whether lemurs responded to projected video content in general (experiment 1). We showed them two videos to which we expected differential responses: one featured a terrestrial predator and the other a caretaker holding food. Next, to test for yawn contagion, we showed individual lemurs life-size video projections of groupmates and conspecific strangers yawning, and control footage of the same individuals at rest (experiment 2). Then, to examine whether a group context might enhance or allow for contagion, we exposed subjects to the same videos in a group setting (experiment 3). Lemurs produced alarm vocalizations and moved upward while viewing the predator, but not the caretaker, demonstrating that they do perceive video content meaningfully. However, lemurs did not yawn in response to yawning stimuli when tested alone, or with their groupmates. This study provides preliminary evidence that lemurs do not respond to yawning stimuli similarly to haplorhines, and suggests that this behavior may have evolved or become more exaggerated in haplorhines after the two major primate lineages split.     

Contagious yawning and psychopathy

Psychopathy is characterized by a general antisocial lifestyle with behaviors including being selfish, manipulative, impulsive, fearless, callous, possibly domineering, and particularly lacking in empathy. Contagious yawning in our species has been strongly linked to empathy. We exposed 135 students, male and female, who completed the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R), to a yawning paradigm intended to induce a reactionary yawn. Further, we exposed males to an emotion-related startle paradigm meant to assess peripheral amygdalar reactivity. We found that scores on the PPI-R subscale Coldheartedness significantly predicted a reduced chance of yawning. Further, we found that emotion-related startle amplitudes were predictive of frequency of contagious yawning. These data suggest that psychopathic traits may be related to the empathic nature of contagious yawning in our species.     

An investigation of auditory contagious yawning

Despite a widespread familiarity with the often compelling urge to yawn after perceiving someone else yawn, an understanding of the neural mechanism underlying contagious yawning remains incomplete. In the present auditory fMRI study, listeners used a 4-point scale to indicate how much they felt like yawning following the presentation of a yawn, breath, or scrambled yawn sound. Not only were yawn sounds given significantly higher ratings, a trait positively correlated with each individual’s empathy measure, but relative to control stimuli, random effects analyses revealed enhanced hemodynamic activity in the right posterior inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG) in response to hearing yawns. Moreover, pIFG activity was greatest for yawn stimuli associated with high as opposed to low yawn ratings and for control sounds associated with equally high yawn ratings. These results support a relationship between contagious yawning and empathy and provide evidence for pIFG involvement in contagious yawning. A supplemental figure for this study may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Do dogs (Canis familiaris) show contagious yawning?

We report an experimental investigation into whether domesticated dogs display contagious yawning. Fifteen dogs were shown video clips of (1) humans and (2) dogs displaying yawns and open-mouth expressions (not yawns) to investigate whether dogs showed contagious yawning to either of these social stimuli. Only one dog performed significantly more yawns during or shortly after viewing yawning videos than to the open-mouth videos, and most of these yawns occurred to the human videos. No dogs showed significantly more yawning to the open-mouth videos (human or dog). The percentage of dogs showing contagious yawning was less than chimpanzees and humans showing this behavior, and considerably less than a recently published report investigating this behavior in dogs (Joly-Mascheroni et al. in Biol Lett 4:446–448, 2008).     

Familiarity-connected or stress-based contagious yawning in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)? Some additional data

The present short note aimed at further exploring data from a recent study showing socially modulated auditory contagious yawning in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris). Two independent observers further extended the analysis of all video recordings made in the previous study and coded both the number of yawns performed by the dogs and the frequencies or durations of stress-related behaviors exhibited throughout the presentation of familiar and unfamiliar yawns. By showing no significant difference between conditions in the frequencies or durations of the coded behaviors, nor any association between the number of yawns and the frequencies or durations of stress-related behaviors, results raised doubt on the stress-induced yawn hypothesis, thus supporting social modulation. The exact mechanism underlying contagious yawning, however, needs further research.     

哈欠传染的发展与演化：一项探索性研究

传染性哈欠可能承载着一定的社会功能,但实证证据还非常有限。研究收集了大学生和老年人两个年龄群体的传染性哈欠和自发性哈欠数据,测量了抑制控制和观点采择,同时采用问卷测查参与者睡眠状况等。结果发现：大学生表现出哈欠传染,但这种现象在老年人群体中不明显;传染性哈欠和个体的抑制控制能力存在共变关系;相比传染性哈欠,自发性哈欠更多与一些基本的生理因素（如睡眠状况、警觉程度）相关。结果为从种系发生和个体发生两个层面探究传染性哈欠的机制提供了基础数据。     

Investigating emotional contagion in dogs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis familiaris</Emphasis>) to emotional sounds of humans and conspecifics

Emotional contagion, a basic component of empathy defined as emotional state-matching between individuals, has previously been shown in dogs even upon solely hearing negative emotional sounds of humans or conspecifics. The current investigation further sheds light on this phenomenon by directly contrasting emotional sounds of both species (humans and dogs) as well as opposed valences (positive and negative) to gain insights into intra- and interspecies empathy as well as differences between positively and negatively valenced sounds. Different types of sounds were played back to measure the influence of three dimensions on the dogs’ behavioural response. We found that dogs behaved differently after hearing non-emotional sounds of their environment compared to emotional sounds of humans and conspecifics (“Emotionality” dimension), but the subjects responded similarly to human and conspecific sounds (“Species” dimension). However, dogs expressed more freezing behaviour after conspecific sounds, independent of the valence. Comparing positively with negatively valenced sounds of both species (“Valence” dimension), we found that, independent of the species from which the sound originated, dogs expressed more behavioural indicators for arousal and negatively valenced states after hearing negative emotional sounds. This response pattern indicates emotional state-matching or emotional contagion for negative sounds of humans and conspecifics. It furthermore indicates that dogs recognized the different valences of the emotional sounds, which is a promising finding for future studies on empathy for positive emotional states in dogs.     

Auditory disturbances promote temporal clustering of yawning and stretching in small groups of budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus)

Yawning may serve both social and nonsocial functions. When budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) are briefly held, simulating capture by a predator, the temporal pattern of yawning changes. When this species is observed in a naturalistic setting (undisturbed flock), yawning and also stretching, a related behavior, are mildly contagious. On the basis of these findings, we hypothesized that a stressful event would be followed by the clustering of these behaviors in a group of birds, which may be facilitated both by a standard pattern of responding to a startling stressor and also contagion. In this study, we measured yawning and stretching in 4-bird groups following a nonspecific stressor (loud white noise) for a period of 1 hr, determining whether auditory disturbances alter the timing and frequency of these behaviors. Our results show that stretching, and to a lesser degree yawning, were nonrandomly clumped in time following the auditory disturbances, indicating that the temporal clustering is sensitive to, and enhanced by, environmental stressors while in small groups. No decrease in yawning such as found after handling stress was observed immediately after the loud noise but a similar increase in yawning 20 min after was observed. Future research is required to tease apart the roles of behavioral contagion and a time-setting effect following a startle in this species. This research is of interest because of the potential role that temporal clumping of yawning and stretching could play in both the collective detection of, and response to, local disturbances or predation threats.     

Burnout Contagion Processes Among Teachers1

This study of 154 Dutch high school teachers examined processes by which occupational burnout may transfer from one person to another. Two conditions that may increase the probability of burnout contagion were investigated; namely, individual teachers' susceptibility to emotional contagion, and the frequency with which teachers are exposed to colleagues with student‐ and work‐related problems. Consistent with hypotheses derived from theories about emotional contagion, the results suggest that bumout contagion was most pronounced under these 2 high‐risk conditions. Specifically, the prevalence of perceived burnout among participants' colleagues was most strongly related to individual teachers' burnout (i. e., emotional exhaustion and depersonalization), when the teachers were highly susceptible to the emotions of others and when they frequently communicated with each other about work‐related problems.     

Contagious yawning in African painted dogs

Animal Cognition - Contagious yawning (CY), which is yawning elicited by sensing another yawning, has been observed only in social species and is considered linked to high sociality. Although this...     

Yawning frequency and distribution in preterm and near term infants assessed throughout 24-h recordings

Yawning has been observed in foetuses and preterm infants. The aim of this study was to assess the frequency and the 24 h distribution of yawning in preterm infants.Twelve low-risk infants between 31 and 40 weeks of post-conceptional age (PCA) were continuously video-recorded for 24 h in their incubator. Spontaneous yawning was defined as opening of the mouth to its full extension in a dramatic stretch movement.The results showed that the rate of yawning across the 24-h period was 1.10/h. The highest incidence of yawns was in the waking motility pattern when compared to active sleep or quiet sleep motility patterns.Between 31 and 40 weeks, yawn incidence significantly decreased mainly during the day. The marked decrease in yawn frequency with age may be related to the development of circadian and homeostatic control of sleep and wake.     

Facial electromyography reveals dissociable affective responses in social and non-social cooperation

While economic standard theory explains cooperation in terms of rational decision-making, empirical studies suggest that humans have social preferences for cooperating with others. We investigated the specificity of these social preferences for interactions with human, relative to non-human, agents in a prisoner’s dilemma game. To obtain insights into emotional processes during cooperation, we measured activity of the corrugator supercilii muscle as indicator of spontaneous emotional responding during cooperation. After unreciprocated defection (free-riding), participants switched more often to a cooperative strategy and showed increased corrugator activity (suggesting more negative emotional responses) when playing with a human relative to a computer. This suggests that humans have a specific preference for cooperating with other humans and that cooperation may be promoted by unpleasant affect in response to the outcome of one’s own “free-riding”.     

Is yawning an arousal defense reflex?

Despite the fact that yawning is a reality of everyday life, its study is not included in the curriculum of medical schools, and most medical textbooks barely mention its existence. Two factors may help to explain this puzzling situation: (a) yawning's borderline position between psychology and neurology, and (b) researchers' lack of understanding as to why people yawn. After review of the literature and personal observation, it is concluded that yawning is a complex arousal defense reflex located in the reticular brainstem with a peripheral and central arche, whose aim is to reverse brain hypoxia. Yawning occurs with loss of interest (boredom) and may or may not be associated with fatigue. By reversing drowsiness, yawning avoids a decreased concentration capacity resulting from borderline hypoxia. It is hoped that this article will stimulate further research on the phenomenon.     

Transformational Leadership and Job Involvement: The Moderation of Emotional Contagion

This study examined the moderating effects of emotional contagion, including leaders' emotional contagion and subordinates' emotional susceptibility, on the relationship between transformational leadership and subordinates' job involvement. By investigating 210 soldiers from eight companies of the Taiwan Army, a three-way interaction effect was found. For leaders with high emotional contagion, the positive relationship between transformational leadership and subordinates' job involvement was stronger for subordinates' with high (versus low) susceptibility. For leaders with low emotional contagion, no such interaction was found. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research in this area.     

社会互动视角下的有意识情绪感染

随着超扫描技术的兴起,研究者们开始关注社会互动情境中有意识情绪感染的脑间神经同步问题。研究发现,脑间神经同步可能是有意识情绪感染在神经层面的指标。“发送者-接收者”模式的应用使得研究者们思考自我-他人重叠理论是否可作为有意识情绪感染脑间神经同步的心理解释机制。未来研究可采用基于自然情境的“发送者-接收者”模式以及“自然讨论”模式来探究不同社会因素对有意识情绪感染及其脑间同步机制的影响;未来还应构建有意识情绪感染的多模态超扫描平台,以此拓展相关研究。     

Three measures of closeness in adolescents’ relationships with parents and friends: Variations and developmental significance

Two studies examined the nature and developmental significance of closeness in adolescents’ relationships with parents and friends. Three measures of relationship closeness (i.e., interdependence, emotional tone, and subjective opinion) were compared and contrasted. In Study 1, grade and gender differences in closeness in relationships with mothers, fathers, and friends were examined. Participants were 133 adolescents in Grades 7, 9, and 11 and 135 of their parents. Closeness in relationships with mothers, fathers, and friends varied based on closeness measure, grade of adolescent, gender of adolescent, and gender of parent. The results suggest that the interdependence measure offers a perspective on adolescents’ close relationships that differs from that provided by the emotional tone and subjective opinion measures. In Study 2, associations were examined between the three measures of closeness in adolescents’ relationships with mothers, fathers, and friends and adolescents’ problem behavior, substance use, and school performance. Participants included 107 adolescents in Grades 7 and 10. In combination, the measures of closeness in relationships with mothers and with fathers explained significant variability in the criterion variables, and reports of interdependence and emotional tone emerged as unique, significant predictors. The results highlight distinctions among the three conceptualizations that are commonly purported to assess a close relationship and point to the utility and validity of interdependence and emotional tone as measures of closeness in adolescents’ relationships.     

服务消费中多次情绪感染对消费者负面情绪的 动态影响机制

在深入剖析情绪感染心理机制的基础上,深入研究了在服务消费中多次情绪感染对消费者负面情绪的动态影响。作者采用实验法,使用真实情景录像作为刺激物,验证了在服务消费中,正向情绪感染和负向情绪感染都是真实存在的,并且服务人员的情绪、语言和行为都会对消费者负面情绪产生持续的动态影响,同时证实了情绪感染敏感度对情绪感染过程产生明显的调节作用。     

Social Comparison as the Thief of Joy: Emotional Consequences of Viewing Strangers’ Instagram Posts

This experiment investigates the emotional consequences of viewing strangers’ positive posts on Instagram. From a social comparison perspective, strangers’ positive posts on social media are expected to negatively affect viewers’ emotions. From an emotional contagion perspective, strangers’ positive posts should positively affect viewers’ emotions. The current lab experiment examines both the social comparison and the emotional contagion perspective while taking individual differences into account. Participants viewed positive, neutral, or no posts of confederates. In support of the social comparison perspective, individuals who tend to compare themselves to others reported lower positive affect if they had viewed positive posts than if they had viewed neutral or no posts. In support of the emotional contagion perspective, individuals who tend not to engage in social comparison reported higher positive affect after viewing positive posts than after viewing neutral or no posts. These findings indicate that individual differences in processing tendencies lead people to respond to social information on social media in opposite ways.