SCIENCE OF ROMANCE
U of S research says aim kisses to the right
Jennifer Sedgewick has an important piece of romantic advice for your Valentine’s Day smooching: Aim to the right. New kiss research from the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) says it’s the nature of the relationship that determines the direction people turn when it comes to embracing.
Those aiming for romance look to the right, but a kiss between a child and a parent tends to produce a left lean, according to psychology researchers Sedgewick and Lorin Elias.
Different types of love motivate people to lock lips, but “it was all in the context of the kiss that guided the direction of the behaviour,” Sedgewick said.
Using social media sites, the pair gathered 529 online images of parent-child kisses, along with 161 photos of romantic parent-parent kisses, and analyzed the direction of each embrace. The results produced a sharp contrast between family love and romantic love.
They also found that the way people turned was predictable, which is seen countless times in pop culture, Elias says.
“You can see this in art and famous movies all the time,” he said. “Many of those posing in famous paintings of kisses, you will see the people exposing the left cheek.”
The physical act of kissing is pretty well understood, but previous research solely examined the steaminess of the lip locking when it came to body language and head turning. That’s why Elias and Sedgewick decided to look at embraces between family members.
They also found the left lean has nothing to do with the age of the child.
“It’s not the age of the participant that matters, it was about the message that was being conveyed,” Elias said.
As to why we seem have a heightened sense of direction in this area, Elias says the answer could be found in brain function.
Couples entering into new romantic relationships tended to show heightened activity on the left side of their brains, which could guide those lips to the right, he said.