Some people do not catch yawns because susceptibility to contagious yawning is a personal trait that varies a lot and stays remarkably stable over time. Age explains a small part of it, with younger people catching yawns more easily, but empathy and tiredness explain much less than people once believed. Genes are a leading suspect, though no one has proven that link yet.
Is Everyone Equally Prone to Catching Yawns?
Not even close. In a study of 328 volunteers who watched a three-minute video of yawning faces, researchers found that individual contagious yawning responses were highly stable across testing sessions, which confirms that some healthy people really are less susceptible than others. Retesting the same person, whether in a lab or online, tended to produce a similar result.
Most of the people who did not yawn were not simply holding it in. They reported that they did not even feel like yawning. If a video of yawning leaves you perfectly unbothered, your brain is probably just not taking the bait.
Is Contagious Yawning a Sign of Empathy?
For years, popular wisdom said that people who catch yawns are more empathetic. It is a tidy theory, since yawns often spread most easily between close friends and family. But the larger study found that empathy, time of day, and intelligence showed no influence once the age of the participant was taken into account. The lead researcher summarized the finding by saying contagious yawning is not simply a product of how empathetic a person is.
So if you stay stone-faced while your whole table yawns, it says nothing bad about your compassion.
Does Age Play a Role?
Yes, but a modest one. Participants became less likely to catch yawns as they got older, even when the researchers looked only at people younger than 40. Still, age explained only about 8 percent of the differences, and the researchers noted that the vast majority of the variation remained unexplained.
Spontaneous yawning begins in the womb, while contagious yawning does not appear until early childhood. That timeline hints that contagious yawns may depend on brain systems that develop after birth, which might help explain why they change with age.
Could Genes Be Involved?
This is where the story gets interesting, and where honesty matters. No one has identified a gene for contagious yawning. But the pattern researchers found, a trait that is stable within a person and mostly unexplained by everyday factors, is exactly what scientists look for when they suspect a biological influence. The research team said they planned to investigate whether genetic influences contribute.
They also raised a possibility: if a genetic variant makes people less likely to catch yawns, the same gene might turn up in studies of conditions such as autism or schizophrenia. People with those conditions are reported to catch fewer yawns, even though they still yawn spontaneously. That is a hypothesis, and it does not mean that skipping a contagious yawn signals any disorder. Most of the people in the study were healthy, and many of them simply did not catch yawns.
Is Not Catching Yawns Ever a Problem?
Almost never. Because the trait is stable, it behaves like a personality quirk, similar to being more or less ticklish. If your pattern changes suddenly, or you feel unusually drowsy during the day, it is reasonable to mention it to a doctor, since persistent daytime sleepiness can have many causes. Otherwise, take it as a harmless difference in how your brain responds to social cues.
What Is Still Unknown?
Quite a lot. Scientists have not settled why yawns spread, which brain circuits drive the effect, or why some of us are immune. The honest summary is that contagious yawning is common, measurable, and still mysterious. That makes it a fun target for future genetic research, especially as large DNA databases grow.
If you yawned somewhere in the last few minutes while reading this, you are in the majority. If not, you may belong to a group researchers would love to study.
Curious About Your Own Wiring?
A DNA report cannot tell you whether you will catch the next yawn, but it can help you explore how your genes relate to broader traits, such as sleep and stress response. SelfDecode turns your DNA data into personalized health recommendations, a handy starting point if you are curious. You might also enjoy our posts on the genetics of ticklishness and the genetics of being easily startled.