While February 14 may typically involve a glut of romantic movies, a new study released February 13 by the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that the temperature could also affect our desire to see onscreen amour.
Authors of the study Jiewen Hong from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Yacheng Sun from the University of Colorado concluded that consumers are more likely to want to watch romantic movies when they feel cold.
The study involved a laboratory experiment among a group of volunteers. In the first study participants were given either hot or cold tea to drink and then asked to choose a genre of movies to watch; those who were given the cold tea were more likely to choose to watch romantic movies.
In another experiment volunteers were placed in two rooms of varied temperatures; those in the colder room again expressed a preference for romantic movies over those from other genres.
To corroborate their research, the authors examined data from an ‘online movie rental company,' matching rental data with records of temperatures; this data showed that, after controlling customers' movie preferences, there was a correlation between lower temperatures and our desire to watch romantic movies.
The authors of the study concluded that this trend can be explained by the fact that love is often associated with psychological warmth and a person's physical coldness activates a need for mental warmth causing them to be more inclined towards watching films of the romantic genre.
Some of this year's big Valentine's Day blockbusters out in North America are The Vow, which tells the story of a man trying to win back the heart of his wife after she loses her memory in a car accident, and This Means War, which tells the story of two CIA agents competing for the affection of the same woman.
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