Learned Apathy

So I'm thinking that apathy is learned.

I think apathy becomes learned, bred, and eventually ingrained through any number (or combination) of unaddressed, unchanged circumstances. Through the continued, consistent factors that eventually wears us down to the point of checking out.  And I believe this extends across all walks of life and environments, from work to school to the home. While I'm sure there are vastly more factors, the biggest ones I've seen so far include

• Those around you - co-workers, peers - just don't care anymore. Apathy becomes contagious.  Consider any moment, in work, in school, in life, when someone else was checked out. (An aside here may be the levels of employee engagement, from engaged - those who invest themselves in their work, to disengaged - those who show up, punch the clock, and head out, to the actively disengaged - who actively work against the company). Imagine those in either of the latter two categories you consider co-workers: you're doing the same job, the same pay, day after day. And even though you're invested - personally, financially - in the job, nothing changes. Why keep trying when so-and-so isn't? Why should I keep showing up on time when this other guy is consistently late and no negative repercussions seem to happen? (Although, rereading this, arguably the root of the issue doesn't sound like it's on your co-worker...) 
• Those above you - parents, teachers, managers - don't care either. Now apathy isn't just learned, but almost taught. We model those we look up to. And it's the same as above. But let's look at schools now. For those of you unfamiliar with Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin's teacher is a perfect of example of someone who's checked out and just counting the days until retirement. And in schools we also have to think about the impact of parents. If parent's don't care about their child's performance or actions, why would the child?
• Changing/shifting guidelines and expectations - when what you're told or what's expected of you is changed more frequently than not. The same goes for which things are priority: if everything is the most important thing, nothing is (Monday it's this thing, tomorrow it's this, Wednesday a third thing "just has to get done!", Thursday jumps back to Monday's priority, and by Friday directions just sound like parents in a Charlie Brown cartoon). 
• Being treated as inferior or the expectation of poor performance - I feel this one is rather self-explanatory. I do believe we rise to the level expected of us, for better or worse. Of course, the caveat is that the person has the knowledge, tools, resources, and support to rise to the expectations set for them. So I suppose an addendum would be that the combination of high expectations and low support, ability, and authority to actually do anything is, in essence, setting someone up to fail. And what would be a logical conclusion from there...? For more information, check out the results of Robert Rosenthal's 1964 experiment, as well as the Pygmalion Effect.

I do believe that people want to do well and be proud of their work and the results they can affect. But somewhere, at some point in our lives, we learn to just phone it in. The question then becomes, how can we reverse the trend?