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.
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