One reason for concerns that any possible recovery may be less than robust is the continuing slowdown in consumer spending. And now there’s more evidence consumers aren’t going to be pulling out their wallets anytime soon and spending their way into an economic recovery. Via Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis, The Associated press reports that shoppers are chickening out in the checkout lines, leaving behind items they had planned on buying, just a short time earlier.

They’re leaving sweaters in the dress department, dumping cookies near the grocery cashier and waiting until the last minute to weigh wants versus needs. Online, shoppers are abandoning their virtual carts as they search for better deals.

People “want to be in the act of shopping, but they don’t want to be in the act of buying,” said Joel Bines, a director at AlixPartners, a turnaround consultant.

It’s more bad news for stores, of course.

It means more lost sales for stores at a time when there are already fewer customers because of the recession. For bricks-and-mortar shops already working with fewer staff, it also means more work because orphaned items have to be restocked.

Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but Burt P. Flickinger III, a retail consultant, estimates that in 25 percent of shoppers’ trips to the store, they’re ditching at least one item. In the recession of the early 1990s, it was 15 to 20 percent. In good times, it’s more like 10 percent.

Maybe you’ve done this yourself — you’ve gotten to the checkout line only to think twice, grab something from your basket, and dump it somewhere nearby. As the AP story points out, actual numbers on this trend are hard to come by. But think about it for a moment, and it makes sense — if you’re serious about cutting back on spending, you make these kinds of moves. And it’s also a sign of how much things have changed in the consumer psyche. Remember retail therapy? Shop until you drop? You don’t see those kinds of terms thrown around as much anymore. Shopping as entertainment just isn’t what it used to be, when you’ve had your hours at your job reduced or your neighbor’s house is in foreclosure.

With fears of a jobless recovery looming out there, it’s only logical that the latest consumer shopping trend would be leaving things behind — the stuff no one really needed in the first place.

If that’s true, it would mark a big change from the practice of retail therapy, the popular solution all through the last decade of hitting the mall to make your troubles go away. From The Journal:

The shift began even before the credit markets broke down and the stock market plunged. Many Americans had already begun to question their “freewheeling consumption” and move toward “a culture of responsibility,” says J. Walker Smith, president of global trends researcher Yankelovich, a unit of the Futures Company. For many, he says, environmental concerns were an important factor in this shift.

Environmental consciousness has often been associated with added expenses such as solar panels and organic food. But Wendy Liebmann, chief executive of consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail, has noticed that the economic downturn is accelerating mainstream acceptance of the thriftier behaviors of the green movement, like cutting out bottled water and growing vegetables.

“People are saying, ‘We are going to save money, and we are going to save the environment,’ ” she says.

The story goes on to cite a 31-year-old book editor in Carmel, Ind., who cut out weekly trips to Target and daily cups of Starbucks to can apple butter and cherries for Christmas gifts.

Well, good for her, and all the others like her, if they actually are out there somewhere. Every now and then stories like this pop up, about the rich cutting back and living more simply. They usually are followed a few months later by all the unnecessary luxury items rich people are buying.

We’ll see if this cutting back and going green thing is a real trend. Clearly consumer confidence and spending are declining. But I’d guess it’s less a matter of turning away from consumerism than this unmistakable, solidly evidenced trend — credit card companies are cutting back on access to credit. The Federal Reserve’s October survey of bank loan officers found they are reducing credit lines for consumers, especially those with spotty credit records.

That’s a real trend. And if you see luxury items selling less well, and lots of stories about people trying to live more simply, assume that less access to plastic probably has a lot more to do with it than suddenly enlightened attitudes.