Prof. Dr. Mike Rinck

Position

Adjunct Professor

Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION

1998     Habilitation at Dresden University of Technology.
1990     Promotion (Dr. rer. nat.) at the University of Marburg.
1986     Diploma in Psychology at the Philipps-University of Marburg.
1981 - 1986     Major in Psychology at the Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany.

Professional Positions

2015 - now     Lecturer in Continuing Education Courses on "Scientific Attitude" for Behavior Therapists at Radboud University, NL.
6/ 2014 - 7/ 2014     Visiting scholar at the Dept. of Psychology, Stanford University, CA. Invited by Prof. Ian Gotlib.
2012 - now     Adjunct Professor ("Außerplanmäßiger Professor") at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany.
2012 - now     Lecturer in Continuing Education Courses on "Learning" for Children and Adolescents Behavior Therapists at Ruhr-University Bochum and University of Landau, Germany.
2010 – 2011     Guest Lecturer at the Hochschule Rhein-Waal, Kamp-Lintfort.
4/ 2010 - 7/ 2010     Visiting scholar at the Dept. of Psychology, Boston University. Invited by Prof. Stefan Hofmann.
2008 - now     Associate Professor ("Universitair Hoofddocent") at Rad¬boud University Nijmegen, Dept. of Clinical Psychology.
2005 - 2008     Assistant Professor ("Universitair Docent") at Radboud University Nijmegen, Dept. of Clinical Psychology.
2004 – 2005     Assistant Professor at Maastricht University, Dept. of Medical, Clinical, and Experimental Psychology.
2002 - now     Lecturer in Continuing Education Courses on "Learning" for Behavior Therapists at IAP, TU Dresden, Germany.
1999     Guest Lecturer at the Department of Psychology at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC).
1993 – 2004     Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at the Department of General Psycho¬logy, Dresden University of Technology.
1992 - 1993     Temporary Professor of Educational Psychology at the Dept. of Psychology, University of Giessen, Germany.
1991 - 1992     Visiting scholar at the Dept. of Psychology, Stanford University. Invited by Prof. Gordon Bower.
1987 - 1991      Research associate in the research project "Integration of Know¬ledge" at the University of Giessen.

Research Interests

Mike Rinck was trained as a cognitive psychologist. He applies cognitive theories and experimental methods to the study of cognitive processes in mental disorders. The focus of his research lies in an area known as experimental psychopathology; here he studies biased cognitive processes in emotional disorders. He published numerous studies on the role of cognitive processes such as attention, learning, memory, associations, and interpretation in anxiety disorders and depression. More recently, he started research in the area of Cognitive Bias Modification, that is, the use of computerized training programs designed to re-train cognitive processes in mental disorders. His special area of expertise centers around the assessment and modification of automatic approach-avoidance tendencies in various mental disorders. For instance, several recent publications of his research group show how relapse rates in alcohol addiction can be reduced by training automatic avoidance of alcohol stimuli.

The complete list of publications is available upon request.

Becker, E.S., Ferentzi, H., Ferrari, G., Möbius, M., Brugman, S., Custers, J., Geurtzen, N., Wouters, J., & Rinck, M. (2016). Always approach the bright side of life: A general positivity training reduces stress vulnerability in vulnerable individuals. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 40, 57-71.

Eberl, C., Wiers, R.W., Pawelczack, S., Rinck, M., Becker, E., Lindenmeyer, J. (2013). Approach bias modification in alcohol dependence: Do clinical effects replicate and for whom does it work best? Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 4, 38-51.

Eberl, C., Wiers, R.W., Pawelczack, S., Rinck, M., Becker, E.S., & Lindenmeyer, J. (2014). Implementation of approach bias re-training in alcoholism: How many sessions are needed? Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 38, 587-594.

Heuer, K., Rinck, M., & Becker, E. S. (2007). Avoidance of emotional facial expressions in social anxiety: The Approach-Avoidance Task. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 45, 2990-3001.

Huijding, J., Field, A.P., De Houwer, J., Vandenbosch, K., Rinck, M., & van Oeveren, M. (2009). A behavioural route to disfunctional representations: The effects of training approach or avoidance tendencies towards novel animals in children. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 47, 471-477.

Klein, A., Becker, E. S., & Rinck, M. (2011). Approach and avoidance tendencies in spider-fearful children: The Approach-Avoidance Task. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 20, 224-231.

Klein, A., Becker, E. S., & Rinck, M. (2011). Direct and indirect measures of spider fear predict unique variance in children's fear-related behaviour. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 1205-1213.

Klein, A., Kleinherenbrink, A., Simons, C., de Gier, E., Klein, S., Allart, E., Bögels, S., Becker, E. S., & Rinck, M. (2012). Subjective fear, interference by threat, and fear associations independently predict fear-related behavior in children. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 43, 952-958.

Klein, A. M., Rapee, R. M., Hudson, J. L., Schniering, C. A., Wuthrich, V., Kangas, M., Lyneham, H., & Rinck, M. (2015). Interpretation modification training reduces interpretation bias and anxiety in clinically anxious children. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 75, 78-84.

Lange, W.-G., Keijsers, G., Becker, E., & Rinck, M. (2008). Social anxiety and evaluation of social crowds: Explicit and implicit measures. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 46, 932-943.

Langner, O., Becker, E.S., & Rinck, M. (2009). Social anxiety and anger identification: Bubbles reveal differential use of facial information with low spatial frequencies. Psychological Science, 20, 666-670.

Langner, O., Becker, E. S., & Rinck, M. (2012). Higher sensitivity for low spatial frequency expressions in social anxiety: Evident in indirect, but not direct tasks? Emotion, 12, 847-851.

Machulska, A., Zlomuzica, A., Adolph, D., Rinck, M., & Margraf, J. (2015). "A cigarette a day keeps the goodies away": Smokers show automatic approach tendencies for smoking-, but not for food-related stimuli. PLoS ONE 10(2): e0116464.

Machulska, A., Zlomuzica, A., Rinck, M., Assion, H.-J., & Margraf, J. (in press). Approach bias modification in psychiatric inpatient smokers. Journal of Psychiatric Research.
Reinecke, A., Rinck, M., & Becker, E. S. (2006). Spiders crawl easily through the bottleneck: Visual working memory for negative stimuli. Emotion, 6, 438-449.

Reinecke, A., Rinck, M., Becker, E.S., & Hoyer, J. (2013). Cognitive-behavior therapy resolves implicit fear associations in generalized anxiety disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 51, 15-23.

Reinecke, A., Soltau, C., Hoyer, J., Becker, E. S., & Rinck, M. (2012). Treatment sensitivity of implicit threat evaluation, avoidance tendency, and visual working memory bias in specific phobia. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 26, 321-328.

Rinck, M. (2016). Lernen: Ein Lehrbuch für Studium und Praxis. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Rinck, M., & Becker, E. S. (2005). A comparison of attentional biases and memory biases in women with social phobia and major depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 62-74.

Rinck, M., & Becker, E. S. (2006). Spider fearful individuals attend to threat, then quickly avoid it: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115, 213-238.

Rinck, M., & Becker, E. S. (2007). Approach and avoidance in fear of spiders. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 38, 105-120.

Rinck, M., Bundschuh, S., Engler, S., Müller, A., Wissmann, J., Ellwart, T., & Becker, E.S. (2002). Reliabilität und Validität dreier Instrumente zur Messung von Angst vor Spinnen. Diagnostica, 48, 141-149.

Rinck, M., Koene, M., Telli, S., van den Brink, W., Verhoeven, B., & Becker, E. (2016). The time course of location-avoidance learning in fear of spiders. Cognition and Emotion, 30, 430-443.

Rinck, M., Kwakkenbos, L., Dotsch, R., Wigboldus, D.H.J., & Becker, E.S. (2010). Attentional and behavioral responses of spider fearfuls to virtual spiders. Cognition and Emotion, 24, 1199-1206.

Rinck, M., Reinecke, A., Ellwart, T., Heuer, K., & Becker, E. S. (2005). Speeded detection and increased distraction in fear of spiders: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 235-248.

Rinck, M., Rörtgen, T., Lange, W.-G., Dotsch, R., Wigboldus, D.H.J., & Becker, E.S. (2010). Social anxiety predicts avoidance behavior in virtual encounters. Cognition and Emotion, 24, 1269-1276.

Rinck, M., Telli, S., Kampmann, I.L., Woud, M.L., Kerstholt, M., te Velthuis, S., Wittkowski, M., & Becker, E.S. (2013). Training approach-avoidance of smiling faces affects emotional vulnerability in socially anxious individuals. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
Schuck, K., Keijsers, G. P. J., & Rinck, M. (2012). Implicit processes in pathological skin picking: Responses to skin irregularities predict symptom severity and treatment susceptibility. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 43, 685-691.

Vrijsen, J.N., Lange, W.-G., Becker, E.S., & Rinck, M. (2010). Socially anxious individuals lack unintentional mimicry. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48, 561-564.

Vrijsen, J.N., Lange, W.-G., Dotsch, R., Wigboldus, D.H.J., & Rinck, M. (2010). How do socially anxious women evaluate mimicry? A virtual reality study. Cognition and Emotion, 24, 840-847.

Vrijsen, J. N., van Oostrom, I., Speckens, A., Becker, E. S., & Rinck, M. (2013). Approach and avoidance of emotional faces in happy and sad mood. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 37, 1-6.

Wiers, C.E., Ludwig, V.U., Gladwin, T.E., Park, S.Q., Heinz, A., Wiers, R.W., Rinck, M., Lindenmeyer, J., Walter, H., & Bermpohl, F. (2015). Neural effects of cognitive bias modification training on alcohol approach tendencies in male alcohol-dependent patients. Addiction Biology, 20, 990-999.

Wiers, C.E., Stelzel, C., Gladwin, T.E., Park, S.Q., Pawelczack, S., Gawron, C.K., Heinz, A., Wiers, R.W., Rinck, M., Lindenmeyer, J., Walter, H., & Bermpohl, F. (2015). Effects of Cognitive Bias Modification training on neural alcohol cue reactivity in alcohol-dependence. American Journal of Psychiatry, 172, 335-343.

Wiers, R. W., Eberl, C., Rinck, M., Becker, E. S., & Lindenmeyer, J. (2011). Re-training automatic action tendencies changes alcoholic patients' approach bias for alcohol and improves treatment outcome. Psychological Science, 22, 490-497.

Wiers, R. W., Rinck, M., Dictus, M., & van den Wildenberg, E. (2009). Relatively strong automatic appetitive action tendencies in male carriers of the OPRM1 G-Allele. Genes, Brain and Behavior, 8, 101-106.

Wiers, R. W., Rinck, M., Kordts, R., Houben, K., & Strack, F. (2010). Retraining automatic action-tendencies to approach alcohol in hazardous drinkers. Addiction, 105, 279-287.