British people are more likely to say that dishonesty and other forms of wrong-doing is acceptable than ten years ago, and it risks harming civic mindedness, according to new research.

Adultery, lying and underage sex have all become more acceptable, according to the findings published by Professor Paul Whiteley.

Those who took part in the survey were asked to what extent a series of 10 activities were justified.

These included avoiding paying for public transport, keeping money found in the street, throwing litter and lying. Their answers were then converted into an “integrity score” and compared to answers given by people who took the same test in 2000.

A decade ago, 70pc of people said having an affair was never justified but this dropped to just 50pc in 2011.The proportion who said picking up money found in the street was never justified dropped from almost 40pc a decade ago to less than 20pc – while just one in three were prepared to condemn lying in their own interests. The survey found that while 78pc of people condemned benefit fraud in 2000, this had risen to 85pc in 2011.

Professor Whiteley blames the bad examples set by footballers cheating on their wives, the phone hacking scandal, and dodgy financial dealing.

And, he says, the implications could be profound for society. The findings show that people with high levels of integrity tend to have a strong sense of civic duty.

The Essex Centre for the Study of Integrity has been set up to analyse the issue. Professor Paul Whiteley is the centre’s director.

He commented: “If social capital is low and people are suspicious and don’t work together, those communities have worse health, worse educational performance, they are less happy and they are less economically developed and entrepreneurial. It really does have a profound effect.”

He continued, “the role models are not very good.

“If you think about it, you know, footballers that cheat on their wives; some journalists that back into phones; behaviour in the City, where people are selling financial instruments they think are no good but do not say so. These kind of things”.

Researchers polled over 2,000 adults in an online quiz, repeating the same questions a similar group completed in 2000.

Participants were asked to what extent a series of ten activities were justified, and their responses were then converted into an “integrity score” and compared to previous answers.

Professor Whiteley said: “If integrity continues to decline in the future, then it will be very difficult to mobilise volunteers to support the Big Society initiative.”

The Essex Centre for the Study of Integrity was set up in response to concerns that probity is under increasing pressure on every front – public, private and personal – and that the implications of this are profound.