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The temperature dependence of spectra can reveal important insights into the structural and dynamical behavior of the system being probed. In the case of linear spectra, this has been exploited to investigate the thermodynamic driving forces governing the spectral response. Indeed, the temperature derivative of a spectrum can be used to obtain effective energetic and entropic profiles as a function of the measured frequency. The former can further be used to predict the temperature-dependent spectrum via a van’t Hoff relation. However, these approaches are not directly applicable to nonlinear, complex-valued spectra, such as vibrational sum-frequency generation (SFG) or two-dimensional infrared (2D-IR) photon echo spectra. Here, we show how the energetic and entropic driving forces governing such nonlinear spectra can be determined and used within a generalized van’t Hoff relation to predict their temperature dependence. The central idea is to allow the underlying energetic profiles to themselves be complex-valued. We illustrate this approach for 2D-IR spectra of water and SFG spectra of the air–water interface and demonstrate the accuracy of the generalized van’t Hoff relationship and its implications for the origin of temperature-dependent spectral changes.