The behavior of consumers is directly coupled in a few ways. However most of what consumers buy is things they would anyway. I'm going to buy a new house this year if I can help it - I locked in my low interest rate several years ago - but if something happens I might be forced to. Most of my spending is no going to change. I'm going to eat, and that comes from my paycheck not from a loan. So long as the cost doesn't go up by more than my raises I'll keep paying for my kid's violin lesson.

Most of the changes from high interest rates are indirect to me. Because rates are up my company is selling less product - our customers have to pay for loans and in turn that means some of them decide to keep/maintain an old product that they would replace if the cost (mostly interest rates, but we can also play with our price) was a little less. In turn this means that my cost of living raise this year was pretty bad (didn't meet inflation), so I've been forced to cut something small (or take from savings).

Now I do have friends who were laid off because of the economy and having trouble finding a job. As always things are worse for those people.