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12 pages, 1445 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Role of Empathic Concern and Gender on Interspecific Contagious Yawning in Humans

by Andrew C. Gallup and Sabina M. Wozny

Animals 2023, 13(10), 1700; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13101700 - 20 May 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3660

Interspecific contagious yawning (CY), whereby yawns from one species trigger yawning in different species, has now been reported across various taxa. This response to human yawning appears common among animals in captivity and has been interpreted as an empathic response towards human handlers/caregivers. A recent study found that humans also display interspecific CY, though this response was not modulated by proxies of empathic processing (i.e., phylogenetic relatedness or social closeness to the animals). Here, we explored this relationship more explicitly by assessing how interspecific CY to yawns from common household pets relates to self-reported empathic concern. Participants (N = 103) completed a survey measuring empathic concern and then reported on their yawning behavior following exposure to a control condition or yawning images either from domesticated cats or domesticated dogs. The results provide further evidence for interspecific CY in humans, but empathic concern was negatively predictive of this response. There was also no sex difference in interspecific CY, though when comparing the sexes across CY conditions, women reported a higher frequency of yawning in response to dog yawns, and men reported a higher frequency of yawning in response to cat yawns. Overall, these findings do not support a strong connection between interspecific CY and empathy or emotional contagion. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emotional Contagion in Animals)

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12 pages, 848 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Interspecific Contagious Yawning in Humans

by Andrew C. Gallup and Sabina Wozny

Animals 2022, 12(15), 1908; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12151908 - 27 Jul 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5556

Abstract

Contagious yawning, or the reflexive tendency to yawn following the detection of yawning in others, is well-documented among humans and a growing number of social vertebrates. While the most common form of yawn contagion occurs between conspecifics, some non-human animals in captivity have been reported to yawn in response to yawns from human handlers/caregivers. The current research sought to provide the first formal investigation of whether people yawn contagiously in response to yawns from non-human animals. In addition, this study aimed to test whether this response was modulated by phylogenetic relatedness and domestication/social closeness. A total of 296 participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk self-reported on their yawning behavior following exposure to a (1) control (non-yawning) condition or a compilation of yawning stimuli either from (2) fish, (3) amphibians, (4) reptiles, (5) birds, (6) non-primate mammals, (7) apes, or (8) domesticated cats and dogs. The results provide strong support for interspecific yawn contagion. However, neither the propensity to yawn (binary) nor total yawn frequency varied significantly across interspecific conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that the mechanisms governing yawn contagion can be activated by varied forms of yawning stimuli, including those from distantly related and unfamiliar species. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Human-Animal Interactions, Animal Behaviour and Emotion)

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12 pages, 1467 KiB

Open AccessArticle

No Evidence for Contagious Yawning in Juvenile Ravens (Corvus corax): An Observational Study

by Andrew C. Gallup, Anja B. Schild, Markus A. Ühlein, Thomas Bugnyar and Jorg J. M. Massen

Animals 2022, 12(11), 1357; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12111357 - 26 May 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2979

Abstract

The overt and reflexive matching of behaviors among conspecifics has been observed in a growing number of social vertebrates, including avian species. In general, behavioral contagion—such as the spread of yawning—may serve important functions in group synchronization and vigilance behavior. Here, we performed an exploratory study to investigate yawn contagion among 10 captive juvenile ravens (Corvus corax), across two groups. Using observational methods, we also examined the contagiousness of three other distinct behaviors: stretching, scratching, and shaking. A total of 44 20 min observations were made across both groups, including 28 in the morning and 16 in the afternoon. The time and occurrence of all the behaviors from each bird were coded, and the temporal pattern of each behavior across both groups was then analyzed to assess the degree of social contagion. Overall, we found no evidence for contagious yawning, stretching, scratching, or shaking. However, yawns were relatively infrequent per observation (0.052 ± 0.076 yawns/bird) and thus experimental methods should be used to support this finding. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Human-Animal Interactions, Animal Behaviour and Emotion)

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11 pages, 777 KiB

Open AccessReview

Intraspecific Motor and Emotional Alignment in Dogs and Wolves: The Basic Building Blocks of Dog–Human Affective Connectedness

by Elisabetta Palagi and Giada Cordoni

Animals 2020, 10(2), 241; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10020241 - 3 Feb 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 6682

Abstract

Involuntary synchronization occurs when individuals perform the same motor action patterns during a very short time lapse. This phenomenon serves an important adaptive value for animals permitting them to socially align with group fellows thus increasing integration and fitness benefits. Rapid mimicry (RM) and yawn contagion (YC) are two behavioral processes intermingled in the animal synchronization domain. Several studies demonstrated that RM and YC are socially modulated being more frequently performed by individuals sharing close relationships. This evidence highlights the relation between RM/YC and emotional contagion that is the capacity of two or more individuals to share the same affective state. In this review, we try to delineate a possible developmental trajectory of emotional sharing phenomena by using, as a model species, the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris), a valid example of empathic predisposition towards individuals belonging both to the same and the different species. We contrast available findings on RM and YC in dog–dog and dog–human dyads with those in wolf–wolf dyads, in order to investigate if the ability to emotionally engage with conspecifics (wolf–wolf and dog–dog) is evolutionary rooted in canids and if provides the basis for the development of inter-specific emotional sharing (dog–human). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mutual Recognition of Emotions in the Human-Animal Relationship)

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