Heather J. MacArthur Receives Center’s Inaugural Dissertation Award

The Penn State Center for the Study of Sports in Society is pleased to announce that Heather J. MacArthur, a doctoral candidate in the departments of Psychology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, is the recipient of our inaugural dissertation award. Ms. MacArthur won the $5000 award for a project entitled Just Masculine Enough to Cry? Male Athletes and the Expression of Emotion in Competitive Sports.

Ms. MacArthur’s project will explore, as she states, “the phenomenon of men’s tears in sports, investigating why men’s public crying seems to be particularly common and acceptable in this context.” She will “advance the hypothesis that although competitive sports are seen as highly masculine, and it might therefore be expected that expressions of emotion would be stifled in this context, the association of sports with masculinity may paradoxically be what allows for men’s prominent crying.” Dr. Stephanie A. Shields, Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies, serves as the dissertation advisor for the project.

Ms. MacArthur has at an early stage in her career already published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and is a recipient of the Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

For more on Heather MacArthur, visit psych.la.psu.edu/graduate/student-achievements/heather-macarthur

 

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