--- title: Do You Like Romantic Movies More When It's Cold Outside? description: Here's what research has to say about watching "Love Actually" on a winter night canonical: https://time.com/3716402/romantic-movies-cold-weather/ author: Eric Barker article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-02-20T15:28:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T08:13:18.740Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Do You Like Romantic Movies More When It's Cold Outside? og:description: Here's what research has to say about watching "Love Actually" on a winter night og:url: https://time.com/3716402/romantic-movies-cold-weather/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cef9c3e2e43c374/6987803ae20a87e912a85356/200527377-001-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4250 og:image:height: 2391 og:image:alt: couple-watching-movie og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Do You Like Romantic Movies More When It's Cold Outside? twitter:description: Here's what research has to say about watching "Love Actually" on a winter night twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cef9c3e2e43c374/6987803ae20a87e912a85356/200527377-001-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Do You Like Romantic Movies More When It's Cold Outside? > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Eric Barker](https://time.com/author/eric-barker/) ## Eric Barker Feb 20, 2015 3:28 PM UTC  Young couple watching movie in private screening room, rear view Young couple watching movie in private screening room, rear view Getty Images by [Eric Barker](https://time.com/author/eric-barker/) ## Eric Barker Feb 20, 2015 3:28 PM UTC Are romance movies more desirable when people are cold? Building on research on (bodily) feeling-as-information and embodied cognition, we hypothesize that **physical coldness activates a need for psychological warmth, which in turn leads to an increased liking for romance movies. Four laboratory experiments and an analysis of online movie rental data provide support for our hypothesis.** Specifically, studies 1A and 1B show that physical coldness increases the liking of and willingness to pay for romance movies. Study 2 shows that the effect of physical coldness on liking of romance movies only occurs for people who associate romance movies with psychological warmth. Study 3 shows that people correct for the influence of physical coldness on their liking of romance movies when physical coldness is made salient. In study 4, using data on online movie rentals and historical temperature, we found a negative relationship between weather temperature and preference for romance movies. _Source: “Warm It Up With Love: The Effect of Physical Coldness on Liking of Romance Movies” from Journal of Consumer Research_ **_This piece originally appeared on_** [**_Barking Up the Wrong Tree_**](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2011/10/do-you-like-romantic-movies-more-when-its-col)**_._** **Join over 161,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email** [**here**](http://eepurl.com/o6uAD)**.** Related posts: [5 things you didn’t know about love](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-love) [10 things you need to know about relationships](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-relationship) [What makes us happiest: work, love or leisure?](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/what-makes-us-happiest-work-love-or-leisure) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3716402/romantic-movies-cold-weather/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3716402/romantic-movies-cold-weather/"},"headline":"Do You Like Romantic Movies More When It's Cold Outside?","datePublished":"2015-02-20T15:28:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T08:13:18.740Z","description":"Here's what research has to say about watching \"Love Actually\" on a winter night","url":"https://time.com/3716402/romantic-movies-cold-weather/","keywords":["Psychology"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cef9c3e2e43c374/6987803ae20a87e912a85356/200527377-001-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eric Barker","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/eric-barker/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cef9c3e2e43c374/6987803ae20a87e912a85356/200527377-001-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"couple-watching-movie","caption":"couple-watching-movie","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/psychology/","name":"Psychology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3716402/romantic-movies-cold-weather/","name":"Do You Like Romantic Movies More When It's Cold Outside?"}}]}] ```