#Chemistry set we need to go deeper series

'We see some of that coming out in the results of our survey, suggesting that kissing plays a role in assessing a potential partner,' Professor Dunbar explained. If you have a strong bidding hand, you can afford to be much more demanding and choosy when it comes to prospective mates. It depends what kind of poker hand you've been dealt. 'What Jane Austen realised is that people are extremely good at assessing where they are in the 'mating market' and pitch their demands accordingly. He added: 'In choosing partners, we have to deal with the 'Jane Austen problem': how long do you wait for Mr Darcy to come along when you can't wait forever and there may be lots of you waiting just for him? At what point do you have to compromise for the curate? Then assessments become more and more intimate as we go deeper into the courtship stages, and this is where kissing comes in.'

#Chemistry set we need to go deeper series

'It involves a series of periods of assessments where people ask themselves 'shall I carry on deeper into this relationship?' Initial attraction may include facial, body and social cues. 'Mate choice and courtship in humans is complex,' said Professor Robin Dunbar. It has been suggested previously that kissing may allow people to subconsciously assess a potential partner through taste or smell, picking up on biological cues for compatibility, genetic fitness or general health. As it is these groups which tended to value kissing more in their survey responses, it suggests that kissing helps in assessing potential mates. Men and women who are more attractive, or have more casual sex partners, have also been found to be more selective in choosing potential mates. Previous studies have shown women tend to be more selective when initially choosing a partner. In humans, as in all mammals, females must invest more time than men in having offspring – pregnancy takes nine months and breast-feeding may take up to several years. Furthermore, men and women who rated themselves as being attractive, or who tended to have more short-term relationships and casual encounters, also rated kissing as being more important. The survey responses showed that women rated kissing as generally more important in relationships than men. They were funded by the European Research Council. The researchers report their findings in two papers, one in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior and the second in the journal Human Nature. We wanted to see which of these theories held up under closer scrutiny.'

Rafael Wlodarski explained: 'There are three main theories about the role that kissing plays in sexual relationships: that it somehow helps assess the genetic quality of potential mates that it is used to increase arousal (to initiate sex for example) and that it is useful in keeping relationships together. To understand more, Rafael Wlodarski and Professor Robin Dunbar set up an online questionnaire in which over 900 adults answered questions about the importance of kissing in both short-term and long-term relationships. And we are still not exactly sure why it is so widespread or what purpose it serves.' 'So here's a human courtship behaviour which is incredibly widespread and common and, in extent, is quite unique. 'Kissing is seen in our closest primate relatives, chimps and bonobos, but it is much less intense and less commonly used.

'Kissing in human sexual relationships is incredibly prevalent in various forms across just about every society and culture,' said Rafael Wlodarski, the DPhil student who carried out the research in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University.