John Riskind, Ph.D.
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Professor of Psychology Fairfax, VA 22030-4444 email: jriskind@gmu.edu office: David King 2043; phone: 703-993-4094 |
Dr. Riskind has prior faculty appointments at Texas A & M University, and University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Riskind was Director of Research at the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania (1983-1985). His teaching and research interests include anxiety and mood disorders, cognitive theories of emotion and emotion disorder, cognitive-behavior therapy, and more general interests in clinical and social psychology. Dr. Riskind's current focus is cognitive vulnerability factors in anxiety, and particularly the "looming vulnerability" formulation he has developed. He is the coauthor of two books with Lauren Alloy, and a forthcoming book with Plenum Press called, Looming and Loss: Cognitive Factors in Emotion Dysfunction. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Cognitive Therapy, the previous editor of the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, and former Associate Editor of Cognitive Therapy and Research.
His papers have appeared in Behavior Research and Therapy, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Cognitive Therapy and Research, Archives of General Psychiatry, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Social Cognition, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, and others.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Currently the Cognitive Vulnerability to Anxiety (CVA) lab has several projects that focus predominantly on cognition and negative cognitive styles in anxiety syndromes and disorders. Doctoral students are also encouraged to develop their own line of research that can be linked to the general thrust of the CVA. My research reflects my strong background in both social psychology/social cognition and cognitive (with researchers at Yale such as Irving Janis, Judith Rodin) and clinical research (such as with Aaron Beck) at the University of Pennsylvania). Below is a list of some of our current projects and areas of interest.
I. Cognitive Vulnerability to anxiety. We have developed the model of looming vulnerability to address why some people exhibit a greater vulnerability than other people, but don’t necessarily exhibit greater vulnerability to depression. Briefly, the theory extends the usual idea that anxiety is a response to the perception and appraisal of threat (e.g., Aaron Beck, Richard Lazarus). The theory focuses on the dynamic temporal and perceptual aspects. It extends other cognitive frameworks by suggesting that there is a qualitative difference between perceptions of threats as dynamic, approaching, visual, intensifying and rapidly rising in risk, and perceptions that are more static (such as likelihood of harm). We have investigated this formulation of anxiety and negative cognitive style with respect to specific anxiety syndromes and disorders (GAD, worry; social anxiety, fear of negative evaluation; OCD; fears, PTSD), information processing tasks (e.g., implicit and explicit memory), the stress generation process (individuals generating their own stressful life events). One measure we have developed is a self-report measure of the “looming cognitive style (LCS),” which reflects a tendency across both social and physical threat realms to spontaneously generate mental images and scenarios or rapidly increasing threats. We have found evidence that supports that the LCS puts people at risk for anxiety disorders, and differentiates anxiety disorders and anxiety symptoms from depression.
II. Studies of the Stress Generation Effect. A primary focus that we are embarking on right now is on the relation between cognitive vulnerabilities of different kinds and the stress generation process. We’ll be looking at how people who are high in cognitive vulnerability to anxiety (my looming vulnerability construct) or depression (depressive cognitive style)don't just react more strongly to stress as compared to other people, but ironically behave in a way to generate stressful events. For example, they may create their own interpersonal problems or problems at work, which in turn interact synergistically with their cognitive vulnerabilities to create more anxiety and depression.
III. Mechanisms in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). OCD is another recent focus. It was once thought that OCD symptoms were only observed in clinical patients, but it is now known that the majority of the population reports intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors resembling those of clinical patients with OCD. Recent cognitive theories suggest factors that play a role in creating this increased vulnerability. These recent cognitive models assume that individuals develop OCD because of the distorted meanings that they attach to intrusive thoughts. In our lab, we are also examining the role of a number of factors and mechanisms (including looming vulnerability but also others) that might contribute to the prediction of OCD symptoms and understanding how the bona fide clinical disorder can develop. For example, does an LCS influence whether individuals develop more OCD symptoms when they are exposed contamination or even film clips of contamination?
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RECENT AND REPRESENTATIVE ARTICLES
Riskind, J.H., Tzur, D.,Williams, N., Mann, B., & Shahar, G. (2007). Short-term Predictive Effects of the Looming Cognitive Style on Anxiety Disorder Symptoms under Restrictive Methodological Conditions. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 45, 1765-1777.
Riskind, J. H., & Rector, N. A.(2007). Beyond Belief: Incremental prediction of OCD by Looming Vulnerability Illusions, Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 21(3),243-246.
Beck, A. T., Wenzel, A. Riskind, J. H., Brown, G. & Steer, R. A. (2006). Specificity of Hopelessness about Resolving Life Problems: Another Test of the Cognitive Model of Depression. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 30, 773-781.
Levin, T. Li, Y., & Riskind, J. H. (2007) Looming threat-processing style in a cancer cohort. GeneralHospital Psychiatry, 29, 32-38.
Riskind, J. H., & Alloy, L. B. (2006). Cognitive Vulnerability to Psychological Disorders: Theory, Design, and Methods. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 25. 705-725.
Riskind, J. H., & Williams, N. L., & Joiner, T. E., jr. (2006), The looming cognitive style: A cognitive vulnerability for anxiety disorders. Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 25, 2006.
Riskind, J.H. (2005). Cognitive Mechanisms in Generalized Anxiety Disorder: A second generation of theoretical perspectives. Cognitive Therapy and Research,29, 2-6.
Riskind, J.H., & Williams, N.L. (2005). The looming maladaptive style in Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Distinct Danger Schema and Phenomenology. Cognitive Therapy and Research,29, 7-27
Riskind, J. H., & Alloy, L. B. (2006). Cognitive Vulnerability to Emotional Disorders: Theory and Research Design/Methodology. In L. B. Alloy and J. H. Riskind (Eds.), Cognitive Vulnerability to Emotional Disorders. Erlbaum.
Riskind, J. H., & Williams, N.L. (2006). A Unique Vulnerability Common to All Anxiety Disorders: The Looming Maladaptive Style. In L. B. Alloy and J. H. Riskind (Eds.), Cognitive Vulnerability to Emotional Disorders. Erlbaum, pp 175- 206.
Rachman, S., Shafran, R., & Riskind, J.H. (2006). Cognitive vulnerability to obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD). In L. B. Alloy and J. H. Riskind (Eds.), Cognitive Vulnerability to Emotional Disorders. Erlbaum.
Riskind, J.H., Long, D., Duckworth, R., & Gessner, T. (2005). Clinical Case Study: Clinical Use of the Looming Vulnerability Construct for Social Performance Anxiety in a Dance Recital. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly, 18, 361-366.
Williams, N.L., Shahar, G., Riskind, J.H., & Joiner, T.E. (2005). The looming maladaptive style predicts shared variance in anxiety disorder symptoms: Further support for a cognitive model of vulnerability to anxiety, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 19, 157-175.
Obsessive Compulsive Cognitions Working Group (OCCWG). (2005). Psychometric validation of the Obsessive Beliefs Questionnaire and the Interpretation of Intrusions Inventory- Part 2: Factor analyses and testing of a brief version. Behavior Research and Therapy, 43, 1527-1542.
Riskind, J.H., Williams, N.L., Altman, M.D., Black, D.O., Balaban, M.S., & Gessner, T.L. (2004). Developmental antecedents of the looming maladaptive style: Parental bonding and parental attachment insecurity. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly, 18, 43-52.
Riskind, J. H., Williams, N.L., & Kyrios (2002). Experimental Methods for Studying Cognition. In R. O. Frost and G. Steketee (Eds.), Cognitive Approaches to obsessions and compulsions: Theory, assessment, and treatment. Oxford: Elsevier Press.
Frost, R.O. Meager, B., & Riskind, J.H. (2001 ). Obsessive-Compulsive Features in Pathological Lottery and Scratch Ticket Gamblers. Journal of Gambling Studies, 17, 5-19.
Riskind, J. H., Williams, N.L., Gessner, T., Chrosniak, L.D., & Cortina, J. (2000). The looming maladaptive style: Anxiety, danger, and schematic processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 837-852.
Riskind, J. H., Long, D. G., & Williams, N. L., & White, J. (2000). Desperate acts for desperate times: Looming vulnerability and suicide. In T. Joiner (Ed.), Suicide Science. New York: Plenum Press.
Riskind, J. H. (1997). Looming vulnerability to threat: A cognitive paradigm for anxiety, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35, 685-702..
Riskind, J. H., Abreu, K., Strauss, M., & Holt, R. (1997). Looming vulnerability to spreading contamination in subclinical OCD. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35, 405-414.
Riskind, J. H., Wheeler, D. J., & Picerno, M. R. (1997). Using mental imagery with subclinical OCD to “freeze” contamination in its place: Evidence for looming vulnerability theory. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35, 757-768.
Riskind, J. H., Moore, R., & Bowley, L. (1995). The looming of spiders: The fearful perceptual distortion of movement and menace. Behavior Research and Therapy, 33, 171-178.
Riskind, J.H. (1995). The status of cognitive change in cognitive therapy and other therapies. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly.
Moras, K., Borkovec, T.D., DiNardo, P.A., Rapee, R., Riskind, J.H., Barlow, J.H. (1996). Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Integrative review for DSM-IV Sourcebook. In T. Widiger, A. Frances, H.A. Pincus, R. Ross, M. B. First, and W. W. Davis (Eds.), DSM-IV Sourcebook, Vol. 2. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Riskind, J. H., & Maddux, J. E. (1994). The loomingness of danger and the fear of AIDS: Perceptions of motion and menace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24(5), 432-442.
Riskind, J. H. (1994). The evolutionary descent of man--into depression. Review of P. Gilbert's, Depression: The evolution of powerlessness. Contemporary Psychology.
Riskind, J. H., & Mercier, M. A. (1994). Phobias. Encyclopedia of Human Behavior. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Riskind, J. H., & Maddux, J. E. (1993). Loomingness, helplessness, and fearfulness: An integration of harm-looming and self-efficacy models of fear and anxiety. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 12, 73-89.
Riskind, J. H., & Wahl, O. (1992). Moving makes it worse: The role of rapid movement in fear of psychiatric patients. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.
Riskind, J., Kelly, K., Harman, W., Moore, R., & Gaines, H. (1992). The loomingness of danger: Does it discriminate focal fear and general anxiety from depression? Cognitive Therapy and Research, 16, 603-622.