We study the md5=f3cb5156d6bab82d480e5564ea42323b" title="Click to view the MathML source">cosϕh azimuthal asymmetry in double polarized semi-inclusive pion production by considering the twist-3 effects directly from a quark–quark correlator. In particular, we evaluate the role of the transverse momentum dependent distributions md5=364e10d6a89cef088f3df9bd2432a2e0"> and md5=51fb61c9fa10eabfc1cad480c4859cd4"> on the asymmetry. Using two different sets of spectator model results for these distributions, we predict the md5=f3cb5156d6bab82d480e5564ea42323b" title="Click to view the MathML source">cosϕh asymmetry of md5=363fb9115febbf54b756786d426231ca" title="Click to view the MathML source">π+, md5=c6d9a9c75ad68c2a1f71db5236872818" title="Click to view the MathML source">π−, and md5=89af6c7e877b96f6e87898b2eaf74215" title="Click to view the MathML source">π0 at the kinematic configuration available at CLAS, HERMES. Our estimate shows that the asymmetries for charged and neutral pions are sizable and could be accessed by CLAS and HERMES. We also calculate the asymmetries for charged hadrons at the kinematics of COMPASS and compare them with the experimental data. We find that the asymmetry at COMPASS in our model is small which is consistent with the COMPASS data. We also find that md5=5fea1e831e1ffc4cb461c283c04b247d"> gives the dominant contribution to the md5=f3cb5156d6bab82d480e5564ea42323b" title="Click to view the MathML source">cosϕh asymmetry, while the contribution of md5=bfea986b9890d669832658b67c964ef6" title="Click to view the MathML source">eL is almost negligible.