By acting (as victims) powerless you make your powerlessness come true.

A lot of students these days know perfectly well that their prospects are poor, and that there is little  they can do about it.  The study sometimes or don't bother studying, as they slump into a reflexive impotence’, a bored, depressed, withdrawn suspension. And the impotence of course becomes reflexive in that by acting powerless you make your powerlessness come true. Clinical depression, unsurprisingly, becomes ‘endemic’, as are specific learning difficulties. More generally,  a lot of students seem to be ‘in a state of depressive hedonia … [unable] to do anything else except pursue pleasure’, slumping, snoozing, snacking.