Yawning has been studied scientifically, and is a response that we can reliably elicit. Seeing or hearing or even thinking about yawning increases the tendency to yawn. Domesticated dogs will yawn when they see a person yawn, but they actually won't yawn when they seeing another domesticated dog yawn. We also find that contagious yawning occurs in very unrelated species to humans. But it's not like we're born with this ability to contagiously yawn. Research shows that among humans, contagious yawning doesn't occur until early childhood.