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When you’re alone in your bedroom and you yawn just before bed, a new video from PopSugar suggests that’s something totally different than when you yawn because you saw someone else do it.
According to the video, there’s a difference between spontaneous yawning and contagious yawning. In other words, you’re reacting to different things when you yawn out of boredom or exhaustion and when you “catch” a yawn. Here’s how they know:
Spontaneous yawning can happen to anyone at any age, even babies in the womb. The video says, however, that contagious yawning doesn’t happen until we are around 4 years old, the time when we begin to develop empathy.
While the video says research is inconclusive as to whether contagious yawning is a symptom of empathy — some studies say it is, others say it isn’t – we do know that contagious yawning is a thing. According to a study from Duke University, 67% of people who see other people yawning will yawn, while 33% won’t.
Can you make it through the video without yawning?
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