yawning may indicate empathy

i like this article on the How Stuff Works website titled, "Does contagious yawning mean you're nice?". here are the good parts:

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Contagious yawning goes beyond mere suggestibility. Recent studies show that the phenomenon is also related to our predisposition toward empathy -- the ability to understand and connect with others' emotional states. It sounds strange, but whether or not you're susceptible to contagious yawning may actually be related to how much empathy you feel for others.

In a study at Leeds Uni in England, researchers selected 40 psychology students and 40 engineering students. Each student was made to wait individually in a waiting room, along with an undercover assistant who yawned 10 times in as many minutes. The students were then administered an emotional quotient test: Students were shown 40 images of eyes and asked what emotion each one displayed.

The results of the test support the idea that contagious yawning is linked to empathy. The psychology students -- whose future profession requires them to focus on others -- yawned contagiously an average of 5.5 times in the waiting room and scored 28 out of 40 on the emotional test. The engineering students -- who tend to focus on things like numbers and systems -- yawned an average of 1.5 times and scored 25.5 out of 40 on the following test. The difference doesn't sound like much, but researchers consider it significant. Strangely, women, who are generally considered more emotionally attuned, didn't score any higher than men [source: The Telegraph].

These findings support what neurologists found through brain imaging: Contagious yawning is associated with the same parts of the brain that deal with empathy. These regions, the precuneus and posterior temporal gyrus, are located in the back of the brain. And although the link between contagious yawning and empathy has been established, explanations for the link are still being investigated.

Humans aren't the only animals that yawn -- even fish do. But only humans and chimpanzees, our closest relative in the animal kingdom, have shown definite contagious yawning. One study, conducted in Kyoto, Japan, observed six chimps in captivity. Chimps were shown videos of other chimps yawning, along with chimps that opened their mouths but did not yawn. Of the six, two chimps yawned contagiously a number of times. Even more interesting, like their human counterparts under age 5, the three chimp infants showed no susceptibility to contagious yawning [source: MSNBC]

This may be related to the fact that empathy is taught and learned. If contagious yawning is the result of empathy, then contagious yawning wouldn't exist until the ability to empathize was learned. But what if empathy is never developed? People with autism spectrum disorder are considered to be developmentally impaired emotionally. Autistics have trouble connecting with others and find it difficult to feel empathy. In another test 48 kids ages 7 to 15 were put in a room with a television. Twenty-four of the test subjects had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, the other half were non-autistic kids. Like the Kyoto chimp study, the test subjects were shown short clips of people yawning as well as clips of people opening their mouths but not yawning. While the kids with autism had the same lack of reaction to both kinds of clips, the non-autistic kids yawned more after the clips of people yawning [source: BPS].

Some scientists believe that yawning is an involuntary response to a stressful situation: When we yawn, we increase the blood flow to the brain, thus making us more alert. Contagious yawning may be a method of quiet communication by which our ancestors spread the word that a hungry lion was nearby. Fear is an emotion with which we can empathize, and yawning may serve as a cue by which we spread that fear.

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