Thanks! That means a lot. I truly didn't mean to make this into an AMA about me, but I also hope one day telling my story can help other people so...here it goes...the short short version....also...I don't advise the path my life has taken to ANYONE except maybe like the last 4 years.
My parents aren't bad people but they were AWFUL parents. My father has severe untreated bipolar disorder which led to him being extremely abusive at times and my mother is a self-serving narcissist who was more concerned about how long she could get rid of us for than they way my dad treated us. At age 16 she kicked me and my 14 year old brother out of her house at the request of my now-deceased stepfather (in retrospect, I'm confident it was actually her decision and he just supported her).
So, instead of moving in with my nutjob dad 3 states away I moved into my car, which at the time was a 1977 Ford Mustang II GHIA. The shittiest of all the classic Mustangs. I lived in that car sleeping at WalMarts and other 24 hr places for a few months (luckily it was summer and fall in NC at the time). Eventually one of my best friends parents let me move into a storage room they had for very little money (I think like 100 bucks a month or something). I got a part time job at Best Buy to pay for my car insurance and rent and finished highschool (which I was always REALLY bad at).
During my teen years I was badly addicted to drugs. I started in eighth grade drinking and smoking cigarettes and weed. I got my tonsils out when I was 14 and discovered my one true love - lady vicodin (an addiction I still struggle with and I'm nearly 30). They rest plays out like a Tarantino movie pretty much.
At 17 I graduated highschool and as soon as I turned 18 I got a job doing hard manual labor at a tire warehouse/retread plant which gave me the income to move out of my friends parent's house and get my first apartment. I worked there for three years while simultaneously selling a whole bunch of drugs out of my shitty studio apartment until I could afford an actual one bedroom apartment. Once I moved in there my younger brother who was with my batshit Dad moved in with me because if I remember correctly pops got riled up about...something...and drove him deep into the GA countryside and abandoned him there. So anyway, now 19 year old me, my 17 year old little brother along with another friend of ours all lived in my apartment. I was the only person gainfully employed so I entrusted the two of them to hustle out of my apartment while I was at work (which was odd as fuck hours, 2 am - noon). I should also mention that the three of us were also in a hardcore punk band and played all over the place when we could touring for long weekends mostly on the east coast for gad money and...you guessed it...free dope.
After a few years of moving what was a rapidly increasing amount of drugs I had been robbed at gun point a few times, had people kick my door in, and just led a chaotic as fuck life. One night, my brother, my self, and our respective female companions were all celebrating my brother's birthday in our apartment when someone who had previously robbed me (but denied it despite very conclusive evidence) was banging on my door. I opened it and he burst in with a fucking trash bag full of stereo amps he had stolen as far as I can figure demanding we let him keep them there for no reason even though "I swear I aint never stole shit dawh." At some point this interaction went awry and a very drunken 6'3 dude tried to slap my little brother in the face. I saw this from the kitchen where I was standing and charged him. My brother and I aren't big dudes...but we were sober and have been in our fair share of fights. Needless to say, we kicked the shit out of this dude and left him in the parking lot.
But that ain't me. I had let my life get so fucking crazy I was running around with stolen guns because I had convinced myself I needed to for protection. I wanted out.
So, the 3 of us took the money we had earned from our business venture (I had managed to hustle my way from a half oz of dirt to about 5 lbs a week of various substances, but mostly weed) and found a house out in the country for cheap and moved without telling anyone. On our last trip back to the apartment to vacuum and finish cleaning someone had already tried to rob us again, the door was kicked open and the frame was splintered to pieces. I disconnected my phone and got a new one.
I had three people who were very influential in my decision to go back to school. Two of them were my best friends at the time (still are, despite never seeing them) were attending the local community college taking general ed classes with the intent of going to a university to get their BA. I must emphasize though, this was not an ambition people from our area had. You were really something if you managed to make it out and earn a degree of any kind. Most of the people I knew and loved from those days are dead or in prison.
Anyway, these dudes (we'll call them Chris and Rob) were the guys who got me into leftist politics, atheism, and academics as a means of self-liberation. They weren't that much older than me and were more into getting loaded than political activism. Even still - they introduced me to Marx, Ayn Rand, Hitchens, the Marquis de Sade, Crowley, H.S. Thompson, Tim Leary, and all kinds of other weirdo freak out subversive shit that made what we hailed as some sort of poignant sociopolitical commentary. Perhaps most importantly though - they introduced me to Pell grants and taught me how to fill out a FAFSA. Up until that point I never believed there was a way for me to afford any college. I was poor. My family was poor. That was it. I had heard about these programs before but never took them seriously. I
The third person was my now late stepfather from the beginning of the story. Unknown to me he had left me 2 grand in his will but I was only able to spend it on college according to his will. So...I said fuck it and registered for my first two night classes at community college. At the risk of making this wall of text anymore longer, I'll shorten this up.
After my first semester I had an opportunity to move to the other side of the state and basically start my life over. I worked a bunch of shit jobs until I finished my BA in Psychology. During my last two semesters I landed a gig on campus working as a student worker for the IT department (I was like 24 at this point and was a better worker than any other student employee because I had done years of hard labor. Fixing computers in the AC was a vacation for me). After graduation they hired me on as a full-time staff with benefits.
Now I'm in a grad program for Experimental Psychology which the state pays a portion of due to my job. My research interests as stated in my OP are class differences, inter-class/group processes, disgust, dehumanization, and aggression.
A study I am working on currently seeks to assess the role that moral disgust and empathy both play in pro-social spending and dehumanization. I think that experiencing moral disgust (which is distinctly different in activation from pathogen related disgust) will impair one's ability to empathize therefore leading to a lower likelihood of pro-social spending and an increased likelihood of dehumanization.
In Psych terms - I expect that empathy partially mediates the relationship between moral disgust and pro-social spending and fully mediates the relationship between moral disgust and dehumanization.
Wow. That was a lot. Thanks for letting me unload. :)