I think it's definitely a psychological thing. My investible assets went down by a pretty good chunk in September of last year, because I bought a house and put a pretty big down payment on it. Even though the market hadn't started to drop, yet, and technically I didn't "lose" money, simply shifted it from cash to home equity, it still bothered me, seeing my investible asset total drop by about 8.8%.
I noticed I started doing little things, like eating out less, not that I ate out a lot to begin with. And, it got worse in October, when the market truly started to drop. I also cut back a bit on driving wherever I could, and other minor extravagances. But, in the overall scheme of things, it really meant nothing. According to my spreadsheet, I "lost" $121,269 in value from my investible assets in October. My little cutbacks here and there might have managed to save at best, a couple hundred bucks. And in my case, I'm still w*rking, so it's not like I had to tap into investible assets, anyway.
But, psychologically, I guess, it still felt like I was doing something. Admittedly, it got a bit worse during the furlough. This time, even though the stock market, and my net worth, kept going up, I still felt the need to cut back on expenses wherever I could. And, with another shutdown looming, I just have this "we're not out of the woods yet" feeling.