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Yawning, likely exists for cooling down our brain. Thus it was a beneficial action for our ancestors. We, as humans, are physically wired to copy behavior around us like for example, if we are walking towards a person we don’t know and they smile we feel compelled and even instinctively smile back. Thus yawning has the same result. If we see someone yawn, we yawn.
This likely started as a way to improve our ability as early humans to stay alert as a group. Yawning improves brain function by cooling our brain so it was useful to a group of our ancestors to help them stay vigilant.
We do not fully know why people yawn, only that it is something common to a lot of animals. Mostly animals who live in family groups which suggest it is a primitive form of social interaction. There are theories that we yawn in order to get more oxygen into our blood or to cool down our body but this seams to have little effect if that is the case. So we do not know why yawning is so contagious that just thinking about it makes you want to do it.
The reason people yaw in response to someone else’s yawing is because it is contagious. When we see someone else doing something, we often mimic their behavior. So, if someone yawns and we see them do it, we often yawn as well.
One idea is that yawning evolved in humans to sync up our sleep cycles.
When we’re waking up, yawning tends to make us more awake. When we’re about to go to sleep, yawning tends to make us more sleepy. Evolving to reflexively yawn when we see others yawn could have helped our ancestors get on the same sleep schedule. This likely aided us when it came to doing group activities like building homes or hunting together.
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