What the way you kiss says about your relationship: It's all in the head tilt

Turn right for romance

Whatever your kissing style - be it speedy, tonguey, soft or bitey - it seems the most revealing thing about it could be the angle of your head as you lean in.

Do you tilt your face to the right when you kiss your love? Three cheers, romance rules your partnership.

Researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of Saskatchewan recently published a study that reveals what the way you kiss says about your relationship.

In short: if you tilt to the right when you lean in for mouth-to-mouth action then romance is alive and well, whereas if you angle to the left then that indicates more platonic, non sexual feelings.

Images of romantic kisses between mothers and fathers were compared to images of parental kissing (mothers or fathers kissing sons or daughters).

‘Our research demonstrated the novel finding that turning bias was modulated by the context of the kiss’ concludes the report ‘As a leftward directionality was observed for the parental context and a reversed rightward bias for romantic kissing.’

80% of romantic couples performed a right-turn when kissing.

Why is this the case?

‘The position in which parents kiss their children most throughout the beginning of their child’s life is likely while the parent is cradling their infant. Parents would predominantly cradle using their left arm’. Therefore, a left lean is more intuitive and this early behaviour is habit forming.

When it comes to kisses fuelled by sexual love the researchers explained the right-lean bias like this: ‘Kissing requires motor control and is typically motivated by feelings of reward, which could guide more right-turns due to the increased use of the left-hemisphere at the beginning of relationships. Right-turned kissing may feel most intuitive onward in the relationship, which would again illustrate that turning direction could be guided by learned behaviours.’

Here’s some examples of the right lean in action: