Erin Tone
Professor, Director of Clinical Training, Chair of the Clinical Psychology Program Neuroscience, Psychology- Education
Ph.D., Emory University, 2001
Post-Doctoral Fellowship, National Institute of Mental Health, 2001-2005
- Specializations
Clinical Psychology, Anxiety and Relationships Across the Lifespan, Emotion Processing, Interpersonal values, Interpersonal Approach and Avoidance (fMRI, eye tracking, and behavioral studies)
- Biography
Dr. Tone (formerly McClure) was born in New Haven, Connecticut, but grew up in Atlanta. Her winding path to her current career began at Emory University, where she majored in English and German Literature. She joined the inaugural class of Teach for America after graduating and discovered, while teaching high school speech and drama in New Orleans, that she was fascinated with social behavior and anxiety. She went on to complete a master’s degree in school psychology at Trinity University in San Antonio and returned to Emory University in 1995 to complete her doctoral degree in clinical psychology under the mentorship of Dr. Steve Nowicki. Dr. Tone then spent 4 years as a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Daniel Pine at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she received the NIMH Richard J. Wyatt Memorial Fellowship Training Award for outstanding scientific achievement. She joined the GSU faculty in 2005 and has been recognized for her work there with the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award in 2018 and Georgia State University’s Alumni Distinguished Professor Award in 2020.
Dr. Tone is a clinical psychologist with special interests in the ways in which emotional states, particularly anxiety, affect social behavior in both adults and children. Current research projects in the lab examine the ways in which anxious people behave in social situations and the cognitive, emotional, and neural processes that contribute to both their adaptive and their maladaptive interactions. Her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. She currently serves as co-PI with Dr. Michael Schlund on an NIMH-funded R01 study (2019-2022) that aims to elucidate neurocircuits supporting avoidant decision-making, as well as perturbations in this circuitry that are associated with anxiety severity. She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, has served on study sections for the National Institutes of Health, and served as an Associate Editor for the journal Clinical Psychological Science from 2016-2020. In addition, she sits on the Editorial Boards of the journals Development and Psychopathology and Journal of Family Psychology.
- Publications
Ronkin, E., Tully, E. C., Branum-Martin, L., Cohen, L. L., Hall, C., Dilly, L., & Tone, E. B. (in press). Sex differences in social communication behaviors in toddlers with suspected autism spectrum disorder as assessed by the ADOS-2 Toddler Module. Autism: International Journal of Research and Practice.
Fernandes, M., & Tone, E. B.* (in press). A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Association Between Expressive Suppression and Positive Affect. Clinical Psychology Review.
Thompson, K., King, K., Nahmias, E., Fani, N., Kvaran, T., Turner, J. A., & Tone, E. B.* (2021). The Prisoner’s Dilemma Paradigm Provides a Neurobiological Framework for the Social Decision Cascade. PLoS One.Schlund, M. W., Carter, H., Cudd, G., Murphy, K., Ahmed, N., Dymond, S., & Tone, E. B.* (2021). Human social defeat and approach-avoidance: Escalating social-evaluative threat and threat of aggression increases social avoidance. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 115, 157-184.
Berg, S.K., Bedwell, J.S., Dvorak, R.D., & Tone, E.B. (2020). Higher social anxiety predicts better cognitive empathy performance in women but not men. Psychological Reports. doi:10.1177/0033294120965496
Weinstock, R., Caporino, N.E.*, McQuarrie, S., Ronkin, E., Cousins, L., & Ludwig, N., Tone, E.B.* (2020). Behavioral assessment and treatment of selective mutism in identical twins. Clinical Case Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534650120950526
Lakshman, M., Murphy, L., Mekawi, Y., Carter, S., Briscione, M., Bradley, B., Tone, E. B., Norrholm, S. D., Jovanovic, T., Powers, A. (2020). Attention bias toward threat in African American children exposed to early life trauma. Behavioural Brain Research, 383, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2020.112513
Ronkin, E. G., & Tone, E. B.* (2020). Working with twin children and their families in mental health care settings. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 51(3), 237–246. https://doi.org/10.1037/pro0000288.
Mekawi, Y., Murphy, L., Munoz, A., Briscione, M., Tone, E. B., Norrholm, S. D., Jovanovic, T., Bradley, B., & Powers, A. (2020). Attention Biases and Posttraumatic Stress: Examining Negative Affect as a Mediator. Psychiatry Research, 284, 112674. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2019.112674
Jayakar, R., Tone, E. B.*, Crosson, B., Turner, J. A., Anderson, P. L., Phan, K. L., & Klumpp, H. (2020). Amygdala volume and social anxiety symptom severity: Does segmentation technique matter?. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. 295, 111006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pscychresns.2019.111006
Schlund, M. W., Ludlum, M., Magee, S. K., Tone, E. B., Brewer, A., Richman, D. M., & Dymond, S. (2020). Renewal of fear and avoidance in humans to escalating threat: Implications for translational research on anxiety disorders. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 113(1), 153-171.