Contagious yawning and psychopathy

•We exposed males and females assessed on a measure of psychopathic traits (PPI-R) to a contagious yawning paradigm.•We used an emotion-related startle paradigm to assess electromyographic startle amplitudes in males.•Scores on the affective component of the PPI-R are negatively related to contagious yawning for males and females.•Other components of the PPI-R were not related to contagious yawning.•Startle amplitudes are predictive of contagious yawning frequency in males.

Psychopathy is characterized by a general antisocial lifestyle with behaviors including being selfish, manipulative, impulsive, fearless, callous, possibly domineering, and particularly lacking in empathy. Contagious yawning in our species has been strongly linked to empathy. We exposed 135 students, male and female, who completed the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R), to a yawning paradigm intended to induce a reactionary yawn. Further, we exposed males to an emotion-related startle paradigm meant to assess peripheral amygdalar reactivity. We found that scores on the PPI-R subscale Coldheartedness significantly predicted a reduced chance of yawning. Further, we found that emotion-related startle amplitudes were predictive of frequency of contagious yawning. These data suggest that psychopathic traits may be related to the empathic nature of contagious yawning in our species.