I've commented on this before but there was a real eye opener for me when I went out for dinner with some colleagues at my old workplace about six months ago, most of them were about a decade younger than me. One of them was nearing completion on a house and they were talking about interest rates in a very matter of fact way that the current situation (at the time when rates were 4%) was crazy and that rates would have to come down soon. It was considered a temporary blip with no possibility they could rise much further and the older ones amongst us who cited the higher rates we had 15+ years ago were sort of laughed off as though we were talking about how we used to ride our horses to work and light our homes with candles. I think because almost a whole generation has entered adulthood with near-zero interest rates and seen that sustained for a decade, that's their baseline of normality. There were people on this forum too saying things like "I'm thinking I should stay on SVR for a bit until rates fall".
That said, longer fixes being cheaper than shorter ones indicates that it's not just the homebuyers thinking rates will drop in the medium term, the lenders must do also.