  The charge-exchange spin-dipole (SD) excitations of 208Pb are studied by
using a fully self-consistent Skyrme Hartree-Fock plus Random Phase
Approximation (HF+RPA) formalism which includes the tensor interaction. It is
found, for the first time, that the tensor correlations have a unique,
multipole-dependent effect on the SD excitations, that is, they produce
softening of 1- states, but hardening of 0- and 2- states. This paves the way
to a clear assessment of the strength of the tensor terms. We compare our
results with a recent measurement, showing that our choice of tensor terms
improves the agreement with experiment. The robustness of our results is
supported by the analytic form of the tensor matrix elements.
