If summer is the season for shoot-em-up action flicks, then winter is the time for romance.

Now a new study backs that up, finding that movie lovers tend to gravitate to romantic movies in the cold weather in hopes it will make them feel warm.

The study from two business professors, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, might help to explain why we fall for tearjerkers like "The Vow" and rom-coms like "Friends With Benefits" -- sometimes in spite of ourselves.

"Romantic love is often metaphorically described as being warm in our language," write the study's authors.

"…The association between romance and psychological warmth may come from the physiological changes associated with being in love," such as sweaty palms, flushing, and increased heart palpitations.

But they say no one has ever looked at whether physical coldness activates a need for psychological warmth, and whether that translates to consumers preferring romance movies.

So Jiewen Hong and Yacheng Sun, two business professors from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Colorado, Boulder, conducted a few experiments to find out.

In one study, they had participants drink iced tea to see if they were more likely to choose romance movies over other genres than study subjects drinking hot tea.

The participants were asked to read synopses about 12 movies and then pick which they would be most interested in watching while they drank their tea.

They found that the ones drinking cold tea were more likely to choose a romance -- even if that was not the type of movie they usually preferred. And it wasn't just women who went for the romance films; men too showed more interest in those films when they were chilly.

In another study, the researchers lowered the temperature in the room where participants were seated and went through the same drill. They got similar results.

Romantic Freeze?

In a third study, when participants were made aware of their physical coldness before being asked to make a movie choice, things changed. The participants seemed to check themselves and no longer said they would prefer a romance.

The researchers say that's consistent with other studies that have found when people become aware something might be influencing their judgment, they consciously correct for it.

In the fourth part of the study, the authors analyzed info from an online DVD rental company to see if customers' rental records matched with temperature information. After controlling for the types of movies users typically preferred, the researchers found that movie renters were more likely to choose romance flicks in the cold weather.

"Our research (shows) that physical coldness activates the motivation for psychological warmth, which in turn increases preference for romance movies," they conclude.

The study is not only an interesting insight into how our physical feelings affect our decision making, it should also offer some valuable insight for movie studios as they make decisions about which movies to release when.

"Our findings suggest that movie studios might be better off releasing their romance movies in the winter season when the temperatures are low," the authors conclude.