"I've always wanted to know why some people are more emotional than other people," said Rusting, now a research psychologist at UB.

Rusting found her niche in trying to find out why people perceive the world in different ways. "Why doesn't everybody just have the same reaction to a situation?" she said.

One focus of her current research is on anger, which she describes as "part of my interest more generally in personality and emotions."

The assistant professor began her career at UB in the Fall 1997 semester, almost immediately after finishing her graduate work.

Few studies on anger

With a focus on social and personality psychology, Rusting says she "can't think of a particular time" when she was struck with an interest in emotions, or more specifically, anger. Instead, there was a "gradual realization" that there was relatively little being done in the field.

Some people just seem to be "anger-prone," Rusting said. They perceive the world as provocative and hostile. Also, they aren't as likely to seek escape from the emotion of anger as they are from other "negative emotions," such as sadness, guilt, nervousness and depression.

Traits of the emotion of anger also sparked the interest of Rusting because they seem so very different from those of other negative emotions. Anger is different for two main reasons, Rusting said. First, it's "outward directed." While negative emotions such as nervousness, guilt and embarrassment are focused on the self, anger seeks its target out in the world; for example, in another person.

"When you're angry," Rusting said, "you're focused on something else."

Second, "Other negative emotions make you feel bad, like depression, where you want to get out (of it). I think it feels bad to be angry, but sometimes people want to stay angry," she said. "I don't think people have a desire to get out of an angry mood," like they do with other negative emotions, Rusting said.

Funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, Rusting is studying how people-high and low in anger-proneness-interpret situations and events.

One of the initial questions is, "why is person X more anger-prone than person Y?"

All of the results aren't in, but so far it's pretty clear that "people who are prone to anger are more likely to interpret the situations they encounter in life as more anger-provoking, or more hostile," Rusting said.

"What is it that's making them more angry? We think it's because they're really focusing on the perceived hostility of, (for example), another person," she said.

Some current research involves "giving a person a scenario that could be interpreted in either way, benign or hostile." Not surprisingly, people high in anger-proneness tend to view the situation as hostile or provocative.

Regulating anger

"How can you change that?" Rusting asked. Enter a separate but related part of her study, "providing effective means for regulating anger and the judgments associated with it."

Two main strategies have come to light, Rusting said. First, the distraction method focuses on distracting a person, by various means, from angry thoughts. It's believed, however, that this method is not as effective as one that introduces a "positive focus" into the scenario, Rusting said.

In the latter method, test subjects are persuaded to "see things in a different light," Rusting said. "When you're in a good mood, it's much easier to remember good things," Rusting said. The opposite also is true.

Keeps research separate

Does Rusting herself get angry? How does she deal with anger personally? She would only say that she tries not to let her research influence her personal life because she's not yet solved the problem of the best way to deal with anger.

Before receiving her doctorate in personality psychology from the University of Michigan, Rusting earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley.

She is teaching several psychology courses, including Introduction to Personality, Psychology of Emotion, Topics in Emotion Research, Modern Personality Research and a statistics course.