In a study designed to examine the concept of unwanted pregnancies as espoused by Jamaican men, the respondents’ attitude to the news that they were about to become fathers was measured against a number of socio-economic variables. The regression revealed that union status at the time was most strongly correlated with a favourable reaction; that men who were married were five times as likely as those in common-law and non-residential unions to have been happy at the news. However, nearly 80 percent of the children of the respondents had been born outside legally sanctioned unions.

Social psychologists recognize ambivalence and inconsistency among the bases of attitudes and have found that a critical issue is the function and psychological needs that the attitudes serve. In some instances, attitudes are expressions of important values and these values are moulded by interactions with particular geographical settings, that is, by the socio-physical space occupied by men and women. A large proportion of Jamaican males face stresses resulting from poverty, high levels of unemployment, low educational attainment and the lack of skills. In urban areas, in particular, the need to survive pits men against women and produce gender interactions that are fraught with mistrust and tension. These conditions have implications for the manner in which male identity is expressed. Exaggerated risk behaviour and exaggerated maleness can be seen as efforts to be ‘heard’ above the background environmental ‘noise’. The behaviours emerge in response to conditions under which people live.

Drawing upon the results of qualitative and quantitative surveys, this paper argues that the lack of economic opportunity, peer pressure, cultural expectations, and gendered noises all help to define the context in which children are conceived. The paper argues for the existence of several inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviours and that the decisions made are quite natural given the conditions of the risk environment.