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On what level can a lie be justified? If it’s made with the intention to spare someone’s feelings, then I’m sure most would agree that to an extent, a white lie is harmless. But when does lying become unjustifiable? When it hurts other’s feelings? When it causes more problems in the long-run? Or when it’s breaking the law?

Professor Paul Whitley’s recent study into integrity brings issues like these to light. His study has sparked interest in the integrity of the people of Britain as his findings show that people have less integrity now than they did in the year 2000. To discover this, Professor Whitley proposed various situations and asked people to rate how justifiable they were. These situations ranged from the more minor, like finding money on the floor and lying, to more serious offences like knowingly buying stolen goods, or drink driving.

The amount of people that rated each situation as ‘never justifiable’ has dropped over the past ten years, showing more tolerance for various situations. The survey also showed links between gender and integrity and age and integrity, finding that females had slightly more integrity than males, and older people with more integrity than the younger generation.

This decline in integrity does not come without its consequences. Professor Whitley states that integrity is important as it “links to a person’s sense of civic duty”. If a person’s integrity is low, they no longer feel obliged to ‘do the right thing’ to benefit society. This does not bode well for David Cameron’s plan to create a ‘Big Society’, to inspire people to feel empowered in doing something positive and beneficial for their society.

The link found between integrity and people willing to volunteer as Professor Whitley states “Individuals who are very willing to [volunteer] score higher on the integrity scale than individuals who are unlikely to [volunteer]”. Therefore, if we are to view integrity according to these findings, the amount of people who are willing to volunteer will decline along with the overall fall in integrity amongst Britons overall, discouraging news for the ‘Big Society’ initiative.

Although Professor Whitley survey is interesting and insightful, integrity and honesty are both sketchy in terms of how they are measured. Regarding integrity, Professor Whitley pushes the point that “suppose you knew for sure, that nobody would find this out, would you do it then?”. The rapid movement of social networking and the fact that the internet is now involved with almost every aspect of people’s lives means that it is far easier to be dishonest than it was ten years ago.

We can justify our actions over the internet with the comfort that we can choose to stay anonymous, or that it will be difficult and in some cases, impossible, to be traced. Aside from the internet, society itself has changed. The rising levels of unemployment and the extreme competition in today’s job market could therefore explain people’s increased tolerance for fabricating a job application, for example.

The ability to justify certain situations has never been a case of ‘black and white’ and as society changes and develops, more and more situations move into the ever-expanding ‘shade of grey’. But what do you think? Have the times changed so much that Britons have no choice but to abandon our integrity to ‘get ahead’? Or are we actually more honest than we were ten years ago, more willing to admit our lack of integrity regarding certain situations?

You can also take the integrity test for yourself here and see what you think.