State Dependence in Consumer Research: A Meta-Analysis

Starting from over 2,000 papers identified through systematic keyword search, I used a combination of an AI assisted screening and two independent human raters to arrive at a final sample of 132 papers with extractable effect estimates. The analysis surfaces two robust patterns. First, the temporal context matters: state dependence tends to be negative within session — consumers seek variety in a short continuous consumption context — but positive between sessions, where habit and loyalty dominate. Second, the consumption type matters: experiential products such as music and video games exhibit more negative state dependence, while CPG categories and tobacco exhibit more positive state dependence. Together, these patterns suggest that the classical “positive state dependence” finding from CPG brand-choice research generalizes poorly to online streaming settings.

Recommended citation: Yuan, Lisha and Nader Tavassoli. "State Dependence in Consumer Research: A Meta-Analysis." Research in Progress.