I'm not sure about that. It's more likely that each of us has a lot of different stuff to care about, more and more as we transition to adulthood, families, etc, and it's not economical (as in time+energy) to care too much about prices and wages as long as we can get what we care about. When the money run short, it changes.

It doesn't change. Have you checked how much credit card debt exists? How and why did that happen? People are easy to game.

If they still have credit they are not short on money by definition. When (where) people have no credit, they spend only what they must or less than that.