The researchers found that yawning in bonobos is more contagious when individuals are strongly bonded to one another as kin or close friends<\/strong>. They also found that yawn contagion was higher when individuals were more relaxed, but occurred in every context when the first yawner was a senior member of the group.<\/p>\n Previous research has found similar results in humans<\/strong>, showing that a person is more likely to yawn when family or close friends do, rather than in response to a stranger’s yawning. Though this social component of yawn contagion is well-known, its origins and significance are still being studied.<\/p>\n Yawn contagion may be a way for social groups to unconsciously communicate and coordinate activities<\/strong>, but unlike other forms of unconscious communication, has a unique emotional component, since it appears to occur more frequently between closely bonded individuals. The authors say, “Though we are still far from a clear demonstration of a link between yawn contagion and empathy, the importance of social bonds in shaping this phenomenon in bonobos suggests that a basic form of empathy may play a role in modulating yawning behavior.”<\/p>\n Citation: <\/strong>Demuru E, Palagi E (2012) In Bonobos Yawn Contagion Is Higher among Kin and Friends. PLoS ONE<\/em> 7(11): e49613.<\/p>\n http:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0049613<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Public Library of Science press release via EurekAlert!: Being socially close to another bonobo is more likely to make bonobo apes yawn in response to the other’s yawns,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[12,98],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8334"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8424,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8334\/revisions\/8424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"bonobos\"](\"http:\/\/www.therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/bonobos_monkeys.jpg\")
Being socially close to another bonobo is more likely to make bonobo apes yawn in response to the other’s yawns<\/strong>, according to research published November 14 in the open access journal PLOS ONE<\/em> by Elisabetta Palagi and Elisa Demuru from the University of Pisa, Italy.<\/p>\n