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Nakia Gordon, Ph.D.

Nakia Gordon, Ph.D.Marquette University

Cramer Hall, 328M

MilwaukeeWI53201United States of America(414) 288-1688nakia.gordon@marquette.edu Exploring Psychology

Associate Professor

Psychology

Dr. Nakia S. Gordon earned her doctorate in behavioral neuroscience at Bowling Green State University. While there, she studied emotion in both human and non-human animals using a variety of techniques. She then received additional training in neuroimaging as a post-doctoral fellow in Michigan State University’s Neuroscience Program.

Education

Ph.D., Bowling Green State University, 2002

Courses Taught

PSYC 2050 - Research methods in Psychological Science
PSYC 3420 - Health Psychology
PSYC 3601 - Biopsychology
PSYC 3650 - Affective Neuroscience
PSYC 4954H - Psychology Honors Research Seminar
PSYC 8780 - Biological Basis of Behavior
NRSC 8002/BISC 8002 - Neuroscience Foundations

Research Interests

Emotions are critical for human survival. They are ingrained in our physiology, cognition, and action patterns. Our lab investigates how emotion and its regulation influence the ways individuals navigate their worlds. We not only study how a person's emotional states affect them, but also how they affect other people – in adaptive and sometimes maladaptive ways.

Current Projects Include:

Holistic Wellness

Holistic wellness, including how we experience our emotions, is vital for healthy living. We develop evidence-modules for wellness programs delivered to college students and the Milwaukee community.

Interpersonal Synchrony

The connection we have with others goes beyond our cognitive thoughts and emotional feelings. Our physiology (e.g. heart rate) is also connected under certain circumstances. One set of studies explores physiological linkage and interpersonal emotion regulation during emotional experiences.

Emotion Regulation

Emotion does not occur in a vacuum. Whether we recognize it or not, we often regulate our emotions as they occur. Understanding the tools people use to regulate their emotions and how that influences behavior is another topic we are interested in.

We examine how individual emotion regulation interacts with regulation that happens between individuals (i.e. interpersonal regulation) and what the emotional, behavioral and physiological outcomes are.
We investigate the influence of implicit and explicit emotion regulation on emotional reactivity behavioral responses, and physiological measures
We examine whether emotion regulation strategies have a role in interpretation bias

Selected Publications and Presentations

Wellness

Gerdes, A. C., & Gordon, N. S. (2024). 6-week student wellness program improves psychological wellbeing of students. Journal of American College Health, 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2024.2351431
*Futch, W., Gordon, N. S., & Gerdes, A. C. (2023). Student wellness: Interest and program ideas & pilot of a student wellness program. J Am Coll Health. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2023.2214241.
Gordon, N.S. (2022). The Role of Empathy in Human Flourishing: Physiological Correlates of Empathy and Interpersonal Functioning. Pentecostal Theological Seminary, “Science for the Seminaries” Project.
Schiltz, H.K., McVey, A.J., Dolan, B., Stanley, R., Haendel, A., Arias, A., Gordon, N., Van Hecke, A. V. (2020). The role of loneliness as a mediator between autism features and mental health among autistic young adults. doi.org/10.1177/1362361320967789.
Zeidan, F., Martucci, K., Kraft, R., Gordon, N.S., McHaffie, J., Coghill, R. (2011) Removing Pain from Nociception: Brain Mechanisms Supporting Modulation of Pain by Meditation. Journal of Neuroscience, 31, 5540-5548.
Zeidan, F., Gordon, N.S., & Goolkasian, P. (2010). The Effects of Brief Meditation Training on Experimental Pain Perception. Journal of Pain, 11, 199-209.
Zeidan, F., Johnson, S., Gordon, N.S., Goolkasian, P. (2010). The Effects of Brief and Sham Mindfulness Meditation on Mood and Cardiovascular Variables. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine,16, 867-873.

Interpersonal Relationships and Synchrony

Gordon, N.S., *Wesley, J.L., & Guastello, S.J. (revision under review). Friendship Quality Moderates Physiological Synchrony in Emerging Adult Friendships. Revision submitted to Biological Psychology on September 21, 2025.
Gordon, N.S., *Wesley, J.L, Kangas, K.J., *Swaneck, S. (revision under review). A Multi-Method Approach to Emotion Assessment during Emotional Sharing in Friend Dyad. Revision submitted to Translational Issues in Psychological Science on September 21, 2025.
Timmer-Murillo, S.C., Kangas, K.J., Gordon, N.S, (2025). Exploring The Effect of Counterstereotype and Perspective Taking in Reducing Bias and Promoting Empathy in Police. Race and Justice. https://doi.org/10.1177/21533687251377232
* Kangas, K.J, Gordon, N.S. (2023, April). Strengthened connections through emotion regulation measured by neural synchronization. Poster Presented at the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society, Santa Barbara, CA.
* Swaneck, S.M, ^ Rizvi, M., Gordon, N.S. (2023, April). The Role of Heart Rate Variability in the Endorsement of Pity and Sympathy. Poster Presented at the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society, Santa Barbara, CA.

Emotion Regulation

Timmer-Murillo, S. C., Kangas, K. J., & Gordon, N. S. (2020). Implicit emotion regulation: A novel method for capturing individual differences in acute emotion regulation. Personality and Individual Differences, 163, 110067. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110067
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886920302567?dgcid=coauthor
Chesney, S. A., Timmer-Murillo, S. C., & Gordon, N. S. (2019). Establishment and replication of emotion regulation profiles: implications for psychological health Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 1-17. doi: 10.1080/10615806.2019.1573990
Chesney, S. A., & Gordon, N. S. (2017). Profiles of emotion regulation: Understanding regulatory patterns and the implications for posttraumatic stress. Cognition and Emotion, 31(3), 598-606. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2015.
Pinkney, N., Reiter, K., Gordon, N.S. (2014, May). The Influence of State and Trait Mood Variables on Emotion Regulation. Poster Presentation at Midwestern Psychological Association Annual convention. Chicago, IL

Emotion, Individual Characteristics, and Information processing

Gordon, N. S., & Chesney, S. A. (2017). On the outside looking in: Distress and sympathy for ethnic victims of violence by out-group members. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 17(3-4), 199-217. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685373-12340004
Gordon, N. S., *Chesney, S. A., & *Reiter, K. (2016). Thinking positively: Optimism and emotion regulation predict interpretation of ambiguous information. Cogent Psychology, 3, 1195068. doi: 10.1080/23311908.2016.1195068
McVey, A. J., Dolan, B. K., Willar, K. S., Pleiss, S., Karst, J. S., Casnar, C. L., Caiozzo, C., Vogt, E. M., Gordon, N. S., & Van Hecke, A. V. (2016). A replication and extension of the peers(r) for young adults social skills intervention: Examining effects on social skills and social anxiety in young adults with autism spectrum disorder. J Autism Dev Disord, 46(12), 3739-3754. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2911-5
Timmer, S.C., & Gordon, N.S. (2016, March). Implicit Emotion Regulation: Effects of Priming on Interpretation Bias and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia. Poster Presentation at Society for Affective Science Conference. Chicago, IL.
Van Hecke, A.V., Dolan, B., & Gordon, N.S. (2015, November, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Young Adulthood: Emotions, Brain Activity, and Response to Treatments. Talk given at MCW Department of Psychiatry, Grand Rounds, Wauwatosa, WI.
Gordon, N.S. (2015, May). Life is Good: Positivity Bias to Ambiguous Information. Invited talk given at Midwestern Psychological Association Annual convention. Chicago, IL
Gordon, N.S, *Reiter, K., ^Fritz, N., *Dolan, B., Van Hecke, Amy V. (2013, April) Anger but not happiness leaves individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder dysregulated. Poster Presentation at Social and Affective Neuroscience conference. San Francisco, CA.
Gordon, NS., Panksepp, J., Dennis, M., & McSweeny, AJ. (2005). The neural basis of joy and sorrow: Affective and fMRI imaging of laughter and crying. Neuro-Psychoanalysis, 7, 215-217
Panksepp, J., & Gordon, N. (2003). The instinctual basis of human affect: Affective imaging of laughter and crying. Consciousness and Emotion, 4, 195-203.