Small man syndrome DOES exist: Research finds chaps who feel least masculine are at higher risk of committing acts of violence

Small man syndrome really does exist, according to US government scientists.

Research showed men who suffer from 'male discrepancy stress' - where they feel they are lacking in traditional masculine norms - are at greater risk of committing violent acts.

The men who considered themselves less masculine than the average male were nearly three times more likely to have committed violent assaults with a weapon or assaults resulting in injury, the research found.

Experts at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, analysed responses from 600 men, aged between 18 and 50.

They asked the subject about their perception of male gender, their own self-image and their behaviour in relation to drug-taking, violence and crime.

In research published in the journal Injury Prevention, the researchers concluded: 'Efforts to reduce men's risk of behaviour likely to result in injury should, in part, focus on the means by which masculine socialization and acceptance of gender norms may induce distress in boys and men.'

Last year, an Oxford University study concluded that feeling smaller made people feel paranoid and mistrustful.  

Controversy over short man syndrome - or the Napoleon Complex - has raged for years.

Supporters of the syndrome say that society's obsession with height forces small men to overcompensate by becoming chippy, more aggressive and - in extreme cases - lust power.   

Although short man syndrome is sometimes called Napoleon complex, historians point out that Napoleon - like Hitler - were not particularly short.