Chimpanzees Exhibit Broad Range of Empathy by Yawning

Through yawns, chimpanzees exhibit a flexibility in their capacity for empathy that's similar to humans', according to new research.

Humans are capable of extending our empathy towards friends, strangers and even other species. But until now it was unclear whether other species were able to extend their empathy to a broader audience as well.

To test how empathy transmits across different social and taxonomic spheres, researchers from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University measured contagious yawning as a form of involuntary empathy.

Study author Matthew Campbell said that copying facial expressions of others helps us to adopt and understand their current state.

Campbell and his colleague Frans de Waal observed that chimpanzees would give an empathetic yawn around familiar chimpanzees, familiar humans and unfamiliar humans, but not around unfamiliar chimpanzees or unfamiliar species such as baboons.

"That humans known and unknown elicited empathy similarly to group members, and more than unknown chimpanzees, shows flexibility in engagement," Campbell said. "We can use this information to try to influence this flexible response in order to increase empathy toward unfamiliar chimpanzees, and we hope we will be able to apply such knowledge to humans as well."

The research, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, may help explain the evolution of how and when humans engage with others and choose to offer flexibility, and how we can do so more than other species.

The research follows a 2009 study that showed that that contagious yawning is not just a sign of sleepiness or boredom, but a sign of social connection between individuals.

The researchers said they hope there work will lead to breakthroughs in understanding empathy and its link to social and emotional connections, which may lead to helping humans break down barriers between one another.