Does a recession make people more polite?

Just like in the language of text messaging, the language of business e-mails has become more and more informal in recent years with a lack of any capital letters or no punctuation. I have just finished reading an interesting article in the Financial Times where the writer asks if the recession has led to a change. She compared 100 emails she received in 2000 and the last 100 emails she has received and found out some interesting things:

• In 2000, 25% were written entirely in lower case. In 2009, only one was. 
  
• In 2000, many people finished the email in a huge variety of ways including "rgds" meaning "Regards". In 2009, there was only one "rgds" and a huge number of "Yours sincerely" and "Yours faithfully".
  
• In 2000, there was little use of peoples surnames and terms like "Hi" and "Hey" were common. In 2009, nearly 40% of emails were addressed to Ms Kelloway, Mrs Kelloway or Lucy Kelloway and in many cases, the term "Dear" was used. 
  

This isn't a huge study and the person writing the article did it more out of interest than anything else. However, it is an interesting question to ask - does the recession make people think about things more? What words do I use? What do I wear? The same person wrote an article last week on how the recession has also made people think more about the clothes they wear. I suppose if your job is at stake you may look for any opportunity to impress.