Paul F. Norris examines the connections between contagious yawning and empathy in animals:
[Matthew Campbell and Frans de Waal of the YNPRC] found that, consistent with studies showing that humans demonstrate greater empathy towards others they view as being similar, chimps yawned significantly more frequently in response to videos of familiar chimps yawning than they did to either videos of unfamiliar chimps yawning or videos of chimps (regardless of familiarity) who were at rest.
The Dish 