Amie Gordon


Our relationships underscore every aspect of our lives, influencing the health and well-being of individuals, groups, and organizations.



One of the fundamental challenges within interpersonal relationships is balancing one’s own self-interest with the needs of another person. I draw upon social, personality, and health psychology to investigate how people navigate this trade-off with the ultimate aim of identifying effective ways to help people create and maintain high quality relationships.


I take a multilevel approach, examining social-cognitive (e.g., perspective-taking, power), affective (e.g., gratitude, awe) and biological processes (e.g., sleep) that shape interpersonal behavior and outcomes.


In much of my research, I employ a dyadic perspective, using advanced statistical modeling (e.g., multilevel, actor-partner interdependence, and structural equation) to capture how people influence each other in the moment and across time. I utilize a variety of methods, including daily experience, experimental, behavioral, observational, and physiological methods.



Social-Cognitive processes





Social cognitions are the lens through which we view our interpersonal relationships. In my work, I focus on how we come to understand other people’s minds and the ways in which perceptions of others shape interpersonal behavior and outcomes.


Feeling that an interaction partner really “gets you” is a neurologically rewarding experience that leads to many positive outcomes including greater psychological connection, liking, coordination, and willingness to compromise. On the flip-side, feeling misunderstood bodes poorly for interpersonal relationships and has consequences at the individual, group, and organizational levels. In one line of my work, I examine the causes and consequences of perceiving that another person understands your perspective. For example, I've found that feeling understood buffers against the negative effects of conflict.


Social power, widely defined as having control over the outcomes of others and being the decision-maker in relationships, plays an important role in interpersonal relationships. I focus on the consequences of feeling more or less powerful than our close others. Does having power help or hurt perspective-taking? How does it shape our response to social norms? I'm also interested in the daily experience of power. Does our power shift from day to day? Do people agree on the power dynamics in their relationship?



AFfective Processes





Emotions can serve as moral guides for interpersonal relationships. In my work, I examine how moral emotions such as gratitude and awe promote prosocial behaviors that increase commitment and coordination. For example, I've found that gratitude, which at its core is about feeling valued and recognizing the value in others, promotes prosocial responding and greater commitment. Awe, which helps people fold into social collectives, increases humility and a smaller sense of self and encourages greater social engagement.



Biological processes





Our basic biological processes play an important role in shaping our interpersonal relationships. Lack of sleep, hunger, and sickness affect how people respond to each other in the moment and influence the quality of relationships over time, often without people ever being fully aware of their effects. In my work, I aim to identify these factors and find strategies to combat them. For example, I've found that people experience more conflict in their daily lives and are less able to resolve conflict in the lab after sleeping poorly.


I am also interested in physiological synchrony. Mutual influence between people happens not just at the reportable and observable levels, it also happens under the skin. I am exploring whether measuring physiological covariation during interpersonal interactions offers a unique window into understanding interpersonal functioning.



IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO.





One unifying theme throughout my research is my commitment to fully capturing the richness of interpersonal relationships by taking a dyadic approach and examining the ways in which people mutually influence each other. I do this by going beyond people’s own experiences during interactions to examine how people are affected by their partner’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors and physiological responses as well as by their perceptions and expectations of their partner. For example, I've used the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) to show that people are less empathically accurate during conflict if either they or their partner slept poorly the prior night and that poor sleep may lead people to overestimate their partner's negativity.
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I also believe it is important to look at distinctively dyadic outcomes—how interactions are shaped not by each individual alone but by the unique way that people interact with each other. From this perspective, I've found that conflict is most likely to be resolved when both interaction partners slept well the night before.​





AMIE M. GORDON, PHD



UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO