E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
It's the height of cold and flu season, with people coughing and sneezing and blowing their noses (not to mention their germs) every which way.
But not all those coughs and throat clears stem from illness, says one expert.
"Humans aren't the rational creatures that we fancy ourselves to be. We're often beasts of the herd," says Robert Provine, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (and frequent fount of weird information for The Body Odd). "We yawn when other people yawn. We laugh when other people laugh. And we cough when other people cough."
Provine, author of "Laughter: A Scientific Investigation" and a forthcoming book tentatively titled "Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping and Beyond," says there's not been much research on the psychologically contagious elements of a cough, usually because "people who study coughing are interested in getting it to stop."
As a result, the mechanics behind the mimicry are a bit muzzy.
"We don't know at this time [what's behind it]," he says. "For example, is it because we have a brain mechanism that when it detects that sound, replicates it, as we seem to have for laughing and yawning? Or are we simply more likely to monitor our throat, to think, 'Oh, there's a tickle in my throat. I have to cough.' The apparent contagiousness of coughing may be due to enhanced self-monitoring and not to a contagious response in the way we find in contagious laughs and yawns."
But just because coughing hasn't been the subject of extensive study, doesn't mean it's not an intriguing topic, says Provine, who devotes a chapter in his upcoming book to the cough.
"You can cough when you have a tickle in your throat or you can cough to get someone's attention," he says. "Coughing can be a paralinguistic signal. It's a much richer behavior than most people think. People outside the medical community pay very little attention to coughing but they should."
Provine says coughing is essential to survival and much like eye blinking, is both consciously controlled and reflexive.
"You can choose to cough or it can happen reflexively," he says. "And coughing can be a life and death matter. It's a critical behavior for keeping the airways clear. If you can't cough, it can lead to the accumulation of fluid, which can lead to bacterial infection and pneumonia. So coughing is a big deal."
Juan Alonso-Rodriguez, a 55-year-old visual artist from Seattle, says he's fallen victim to a contagious coughing fit many a time and has also seen it happen in others.
"It's like a suggestion," he says. "I think it's that herd mentality. I hear someone clearing their throat or coughing and it puts the thought into my head that I should do the same. And I've noticed other people do it, too. Especially if you're in a meeting in a conference room. Somebody will cough and then you do the throat clear cough and then there's bound to be one or two other people that do it."
But even though he's a slave to the counterfeit cough, Alonso-Rodriguez says he doesn't really mind.
"I think it's hilarious," he says. "Somebody else coughs and there's nothing in my throat but I feel compelled to clear it. How stupid is that? It makes me feel very primitive."
More from The Body Odd:
- Can you die from laughter?
- No pun intended: 'Joking disease' is no joke
- Our Lin-sane attraction to terrible puns, explained
Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.
Leave a Comment:
I have never coughed after someone else coughed, and honestly have never seen it happen. I have seen yawning becoming contagious, maybe even sneezing (especially if the room is dusty or has lint, causing multiple people to sneeze at about the same time), but coughing? Never seen it.
I work in a fairly quiet office building and have always been very conscious of the noises I make. I noticed a while ago that every time I did finally cough (I try to hold back the noise if I can) there would always be one or two other coughs from various corners of the building.
Now that the phenomenon has been pointed out to you, you can make a conscious effort to experience it for yourself. I guarantee that this happens all the time.
Where do they come up with this research? When I'm in a room full of people (like church) and they start coughing, whether real or copycat, I feel like just getting up and leaving, and sometimes do. If you are sick stay home, if you can't resist copycat barking, stay home. I'm convinced with most apparently healthy people it's just a nasty habit and they need to address it. No sympathy from me. If I have a genuine cough I don't even go to the grocery store.
Not all coughs are contagious. I have asthma, I cough, it does not mean that I am 'sick'. If it is very cold outside, as it often is up here in Canada in the winter, people often cough upon exertion. Not sick. What bugs me is the paranoia people have about germs. We are meant to battle a few things. Actually, many coughs are NOT contagious, same as many sneezes are not contagious.
I am a music student, so I am around a lot of singers a lot of the time, they tend to be a bit more on the paranoid side about colds/flus/sore throats/you name it. Fortunately, by this point they know that my cough is not contagious at all.
I guess I should explain that although my doctor is convinced that I do have asthma, they will not prescribe anything until the results from my pulmonary function test are compiled, and the test is not until March 14th. So, I live with problems breathing-sometimes making it hard to play my flute-and coughing, especially after rushing between classes or climbing the three flights of stairs in my faculty to get from my locker to my class. And for those who are looking to place blame on me, until November when things started up, I went to the gym almost everyday, ran 3 or 4 miles, lifted weights and did other strength training. Nothing new came into my house, I didn't start using new cleaning chemicals, etc etc. However, it does seem to be a genetic thing, as my sister developed asthma when she was in her early twenties. So sorry for having a genuine medical condition. I cannot NOT cough, and I am not about to seclude myself in my house for another month or more until I can get treatment started. I have tried to suppress my cough, and it doesn't work so well, often just makes the breathing issue harder. Taking a cough suppressant also made my lungs feel tighter. Coughing is a necessary process, and I've been told it's very important NOT to suppress it most of the time, as doing so can easily lead to a build-up of junk, and pneumonia.
What I DO NOT have sympathy for is the smokers who start hacking away. Had that happen last night, and as I was very tired, I almost burst out laughing, because it was an "I told you so" type of moment...
This happened yesterday in the library when I was trying to study. Two hypochondriacs were trying to outdo each other. They'd be fine for 5 minutes, then one would cough and then 'coincidentally' the other would within 1 or 2 seconds. Then another 3 or 4 minutes without any coughing, and they'd do it again. It was like call and response type preaching or something. Totally annoying, with each one thinking they had to legitimately cough even though they were both copying the other one.