Why is it when you see someone yawn, it makes you want to yawn too?

Question

It's not like when you see someone cough, sneeze etc....it's the only bodily function that I can think of that's like this! Or maybe I just have WAAY too much time on my hands tonight?

Answer 1

It's a reflex

Answer 2

It is called contagious yawning, and exhibited by a great number of people.
I will include in my answer only one study result
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And Gordon G. Gallup, Jr., professor of psychology at State University of New York at Albany, said no one really knows why.

"Nobody's been able to identify the physiological trigger for contagious yawning or even yawning per se being contagious," he said.

Gallup contributed to a research study published this year entitled, "Contagious yawning: the role of self-awareness and mental state attribution." In the study, Gallup and his colleagues found that contagious yawning is linked to someone's ability to empathize with another person.
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Schizotypal personality questionnaires were also used to determine if a person was schizophrenic. People that scored low on the scizotypal personality tests [therefore having less schizophrenic traits] were more likely to show contagious yawning than those who had higher scores, Gallup said,

Based on the results of the tests, Gallup and the other researchers associated contagious yawning with having the ability to empathize and conceive of one's self.

"There is growing evidence that schizophrenics show deficient self-conception," he said. "They can't distinguish between behaviors that are self-initiated and behaviors that are not."

For example, Gallup said, there is evidence that when schizophrenics hear voices, a common symptom of schizophrenia, the voices are usually their own, and not those of others. "If you tell [a schizophrenic] to open their mouth as wide as they can [when they hear the voices], the voices stop."

Also, because of the self-processing deficit, if a schizophrenic sees his or her own hand in addition to someone else's on a video monitor, the schizophrenic cannot distinguish his or her own hand from the other. "Normally, you would move your hand around in a certain direction and you could then say which was yours, but [schizophrenics] can't say which is theirs," he said.
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http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2003/10/10-28-03tdc/10-28-03dscihealth-03.asp

Answer 3

dear human
congratulate to you
your question show me you are a smart human
before i about this question read more book.
some nation have some exampl about yawn.
1-main cause in unknown
but told increase co2 in brain cause yawn ,and in a room or anywhere you and someone standing co2 and 02
is same .
if you geat 02 before going inside a room that peopel start yawn ,you dont start yawn
near tree in day you havent geat yawn(tree exit o2)
near tree in night or room you start yawn(tree exit co2)
in night your parasampatic systeam increase tone
for this reasion lung and trache colapse and in your blood increase co2
after hard work same phenomen appear.


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