ArticleScientific reports2021
First evidence of yawn contagion in a wild monkey species.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Contagious yawning is stronger in wolves than in dog-admixed wolves.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Behavioral Contagion in Wild Ecuadorian White-Fronted Capuchins (Cebus aequatorialis).American journal of primatology · 2026Article
- Inertia and Rapid Divergence in the Evolution of Yawning: A Comparison Between Two Closely Related but Socially Different Monkeys.American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Is it a Match? Yawn Contagion and Smile Mimicry in Toddlers.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Affective bodily responses in monkeys predict subsequent pessimism, but not vice versa.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Yawn Contagion and Modality-Matching in the Female-Bonded Society of Geladas (Theropithecus gelada).American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Contagious yawning and scratching in captive lemurs.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The sound of yawns makes geladas yawn.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Yawning and scratching contagion in wild spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi).Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Inter-sexual multimodal communication during mating in wild geladas: the leading role of females.Current zoology · 2022Article
- Interspecific Contagious Yawning in Humans.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Yawn contagion in bonobos: Another group, another story.American journal of primatology · 2022Article
- Bridging Captive and Wild Studies: Behavioral Plasticity and Social Complexity inAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Yawn contagion occurs when individuals yawn in response to the yawn of others (triggers). This is the first account of yawn contagion in wild geladas (Theropithecus gelada), a monkey species that shows yawn contagion in captivity and is organized in core units (one-male/bachelor groups) forming multilevel associations. In a population of geladas from the Kundi plateau (Ethiopia) we found that the yawning response was highest when geladas could perceive a triggering yawn, which confirms that yawn contagion is present in the wild. Yawn duration, mouth-opening degree and presence/absence of vocalisation (possibly modulating yawn detectability) did not affect the likelihood of contagion. Males and females, known to be both implicated in movement initiation within groups, were similarly powerful as yawn triggers. Instead, group membership and responder sex had a significant role in shaping the phenomenon. Yawn contagion was highest between individuals belonging to different core units and males were most likely to respond to others' yawns. Because males have a non-negligible role in inter-group coordination, our results suggest that yawn contagion may have a communicative function that goes beyond the basic unit level.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.