Mark Waugh made a point a couple of days ago that the Aussie players and Nielsen seemed a bit in awe whenever they spoke of how well the Indians have reversed it and how they were trying to match it. He said the attitude was showing in their batting and they're giving far too much respect to them instead of trying to do what they normally do and impose their own game on India.
It's the control thing, I reckon. Because India is reversing it and they're not, it almost seems mythical and that breeds the awe, etc and consequent feelings of being out-of-control. This Aussie team
hates dealing with things out of their control, out-of-the-ordinary or a bit different. It's why when they play South Africa, they feel like they'll beat them every time but when they play India, there's always the threat of a loss. Psychologically it goes back to fear of the unknown (probably a bit of xenophobia); when they play India, instead of seeing them as opponents on a cricket field, they probably see them as these creatures who can do magic tricks with the ball they can't. Breeds the most basic human emotion in these circumstances, fear. What follows? Panic.
Notice how the tension regarding losing the Ashes in 2005 didn't fully dissipate when they beat them in the return series and only when it as found English bowlers were apparently using sweets to get the ball to reverse? Suddenly, they had a reason, something they could blame for the loss. Was a way to regain control of the situation. "We knew it! So there you go, they had to cheat to win!" Look for something similar to be uncovered after this series, whether true or not (i.e. there's no proof that using sweets on the ball affected it at all). Need an outside influence to blame. Why?
The Aussie team is built on having trained and planned for every possibility in cricket and doing all the little things right that the other teams either ignore or don't do as well (ground fielding, for example). Being beaten on their merits is incongruous to this psychology because they would think, they're doing everything right and should win. So if they lose, must have been something else, the oppo cheated, etc.