Stigmatisation of yawning could be a strategy to avoid disease, study argues

By Matthew Warren It’s really common to start yawning after seeing someone else do it.  You might even be yawning right now, just reading about it. But we also instinctively know that there’s something a bit rude about yawning: we’re less likely to show this “yawn contagion” when we’re being watched, for instance. And even when we do yawn in the presence of others, we’ll often cover our mouth. Why does yawning carry this stigma? The obvious explanation is that yawning indicates that we are tired or bored, and we might not want to make others feel like they are the source of that boredom (even if they are!). But the authors of a new study in Personality and Individual Differences have another intriguing theory: we dislike yawning because it can be a sign of disease. There is some evidence that yawning is related to disease, note Mitch Brown from the University of Arkansas and colleagues. Certain neurological diseases can lead to abnormal yawning, for example, and yawning may become more frequent as someone develops a fever (some researchers argue that one of the purposes of yawning is to cool the brain, though this theory is contentious). Yawns can also indicate fatigue, which is often brought on by illness. The team also points out that covering our mouth hardly hides the fact that we are yawning — in fact, it might even draw attention to it. So perhaps it is more akin to covering our mouths during a cough or sneeze: an action performed to avoid...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Cognition Health Source Type: blogs