Arina Pismenny, Ph.D., assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Nevada, Reno, has recently published a paper in the Journal of the European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotions.
This paper examines the role of emotion norms in constructing both emotions and social identities. Emotions are not biologically fixed or purely individual states; they are shaped by social expectations about what one should feel, how one should express what one feels, and whose emotions count. These emotion norms do not merely constrain expression—they shape which emotions are intelligible, permissible and punished, thereby contributing to the formation and maintenance of social categories such as gender, race, sexuality and disability. Pismenny argues that emotion norms are key mechanisms through which social identities are constructed, regulated, and enforced. They naturalise dominant gender roles by prescribing distinct emotional repertoires and by penalising deviation. These norms also produce emotional double binds, particularly for marginalised individuals, by making all available emotional responses subject to sanction or misrecognition.
Passion: Journal of the European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotions 4, no. 1 (2026): 15–32. Read: The Politics of Feeling: Emotion Norms and the Making of Difference.
