Male pregnancy symptoms and cross-sex identity in three societies

ABSTRACT

Investigation was made, in three societies, of some psychological and behavioral correlates of husband's symptoms during wife's pregnancy. In general, men who experienced symptoms gave female-like responses on covert measures of sex identity and hypermasculine responses on overt measures. The hyper-masculine responses were interpreted as attempts to deal with an underlying cross-sex identity. In two of the three societies, male symptomatology was associated with father absence or adult male absence during the first 10 years of life. The findings indicate that symptomatology may be a useful cross-cultural measure of male cross-sex identity (Summary)