--- 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=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 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=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Do You Like Romantic Movies More When It's Cold Outside? by [Eric Barker](/author/eric-barker/) ## Eric Barker Feb 20, 2015 3:28 PM CUT  Young couple watching movie in private screening room, rear view Young couple watching movie in private screening room, rear viewGetty Images by [Eric Barker](/author/eric-barker/) ## Eric Barker Feb 20, 2015 3:28 PM CUT 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 "undefined")**_._** **Join over 161,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email** [**here**](http://eepurl.com/o6uAD "undefined")**.** Related posts: [5 things you didn’t know about love](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-love "undefined") [10 things you need to know about relationships](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-relationship "undefined") [What makes us happiest: work, love or leisure?](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/what-makes-us-happiest-work-love-or-leisure "undefined") ```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?"}}]}] ```