Study Does Kiss And Tell

SCIENCE

Study does kiss and tell

And what thesis tells may be part of reason for smooching

ALAN WARREN,THE ANN ARBOR NEWS

Lulu and Louis Smith pause for a moment together in their home in Ann Arbor. The couple, married for 31 years, have found they are doing more kissing as a means of reassurance after Louis experienced aphasia following a stroke.

BY COLIN MCEVOY Newhouse News Service

Easton, PA. - A discussion with her friends about kissing - specifically, bad kissing- led Lafayette College student Carey Wilson to a simple question: Why do we kiss in the first place?

“I mean, it’s a strange behavior if you think about it,” Wilson, 22, said with a laugh. “Why do so many people do it? Why does it feel good? Where does it originate? Who thought of
it?” 

Those simple questions led Wilson, who graduated with a degree in neuroscience last year, to write her honors thesis on the science behind the smooching.

The study has since been cited in national publications, including Self magazine, the Washington Post and the February edition of Scientific American Mind.

It has also forever changed Wilson’s perspective about kissing.

“My boyfriend I was dating when I was doing this research would always get so frustrated with me,” she said.

“I said, ‘Do you know your brain is releasing oxytocin right now?”’

Wilson compared the levels of oxytocin, a hormone involved in social bonding, in college-age couples asked to kiss each other for 16 minutes.

She expected to see an increase in the hormone levels for both genders but was surprised to find the levels only rose for the men and dropped for the women.

Wilson concluded that the women required more than just the kiss -such as a romantic environment - to feel emotionally connected during physical contact, whereas the men did not.

“In an environment where they’re getting their blood done, they’re being forced to make out, they’re answering these questions about intimacy, it’s not really romantic and the females were almost turned off by it,” she said.

But when it comes to the men, Wilson added with a laugh, "The guys will just take what they can get."

Wilson also found that levels of cortisol, a hormone related to stress, dropped for both genders, so kissing does play a part in relieving stress.

Although there has been some general talk and assumptions ont he topic of philematology- the study of kissing -Wilson said it is a surprisingly under-researched area.

"If you Google kissing, there's a lot of psychoanalytic theory out there or a lot of people saying, 'Ooh, maybe it'll increase oxytocin,' but if you actually go into the scientific journals, there's really not much experimentation to back up those statements, " she said. "It's a lot of fluffy talk."

Neuroscience, the scientific study of the brain and nervous system, is growing in popularity among liberal arts colleges, said Wendy Hill, Lafayette College provost and neuroscience professor.

“Part of the reason is the questions

SEE KISS STUDY, C2

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAREY WILSON

Research conducted by Lafayette College neuroscience graduate Carey Wilson, right, and Wendy Hill, provost and Rappolt Professor in Neuroscience, left, was featured in Scientific American Mind. The article, "Affairs of the Lips: Why We Kiss," discusses the body's many physical and neurological reactions to kissing.

KISS STUDY FROM C1

Only research of its kind at conference

that neuroscientists address are so inherently interesting," said Hill, Wilson's thesis adviser.

"There have been great advances in techniques that allow us to examine the working of the brain that we didn't have 20 years ago, so it has opened up lots of fields of inquiry."

When Wilson presented her findings at the annual Society for Neuroscience conference in November, it was the only research of its kind on display, and long lines of people formed to see it, she said.

While Wilson has delved into the secrets of kissing, she said, it has far from ruined the romantic gesture for her. 

"No matter how much you study something, no matter how much science and research there is, there's always going to be an element of fun and mystery in kissing," she said.