Principle on temperature response to the stress-strain variation is fundamental to the relationship between thermal radiation variation and stress-strain field. Current research indicates that temperature has a sensitive response to rock deformation under the condition of normal temperature background. However, the basic physical relationship between deformation and temperature variation is not clear and need to be investigated further. In this paper, principle on temperature response to stress-strain variation is studied in detail, based on thermodynamics, elastic strain theory, and experiments on both ideal material and rock. In the stage of elastic deformation, results indicate that: 1) temperature increment is positively correlated with volume strain variation. Temperature rises with hydrostatic pressure increase. In other words, temperature rises when the specimen is under the compressive state whereas temperature drops under the tensile state. 2) Pure shear deformation does not contribute to tempera- ture variation. Namely, shape change of specimen does not produce temperature variation. However, there exist the relative tensile area and the compressive one in the specimen under the state of pure shear. Temperature drops within the relative tensile area while temperature rises within the compressive areas during the process of loading. Principle on temperature response to the stress-strain variation is fundamental to the relationship between thermal radiation variation and stress-strain field. Current research indicates that temperature has a sensitive response to rock deformation under the condition of normal temperature background. However, the basic physical relationship between deformation and temperature variation is not clear and need to be further further. In this paper, principle on temperature response to stress-strain variation is studied in detail, based on thermodynamics, elastic strain theory, and experiments on both ideal material and rock In the stage of elastic deformation, results indicate that: 1) temperature increment is positively correlated with volume strain variation. Temperature rises is is correlated with volume strain variation. tensile state. 2) Pure shear deformation does not c ontribute to tempera- ture variation. Namely, shape change of specimen does not produce temperature variation. However, there exist the relative tensile area and the compressive one in the specimen under the state of pure shear. Temperature drops within the relative tensile area while temperature rises within the compressive areas during the process of loading.