It used to be you really had to spend time with a person, or ask them out, to find out if they were a psychopath. Now thanks to science, all you’ve got to do is pay attention to one little social cue to determine if you should stay far, far away from a person.
New research indicates that psychopaths may be immune to the contagious yawn. Contagious yawning is “an acknowledged sign of empathy between humans” and another way of saying “I’m with you, pal.”
For the research, Rundle and his colleagues enlisted 135 students to fill out the Psychopathic Personality Inventory, a questionnaire used to diagnose psychopathy via personality traits such as coldheartedness, Machiavellianism, egocentricity, callousness and impulsivity. Afterwards, the students viewed videos of people making different facial movements, including yawning.
The researchers found that those who displayed more psychopathic behaviours were less likely to respond in kind when viewing the yawning clip, suggesting that their empathy processes weren’t functioning normally.
Now, this doesn’t mean if a person doesn’t return your yawn he or she is a psycho. So don’t go dumping her just yet. Staring at you while you sleep, not THAT…
[via Ask Men]