By Li Hongmei

According to a survey conducted by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in 2011, 90.2% of participants believed that people who are honest and trustworthy place themselves at a disadvantage, reports the Beijing-based Economic Information Daily.

Meanwhile, recent surveys conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences showed that about 70% of those surveyed do not trust strangers.

Many games based on deception have also become popular in recent years, in which the ability to lie is an important key to success, while cheating in exams at universities, high schools and even primary schools is now commonplace across the country. In an extreme case in June this year, students at the Zhongxiang Third High School in central China's Hubei province attacked their teachers who scuppered their attempts to cheat

When searching for "writing research papers" on China's largest search engine Baidu, more than 20 million results appear, with the first page showing intermediary organizations offering to write research papers on behalf of students. One unnamed agent said they have established channels to handle all kinds of written assignments and research papers for students or researchers, charging according to the requirements.

During exam periods at many schools or even in judicial exams, many ads appear online claiming to offer the answers to the tests. A graduate from Beijing surnamed Lin said one of his classmates seldom studied but bought exam answers from an intermediary to achieve high scores and later enrolled in graduate school.

Lu Xiaowen, deputy director of the Institute of Sociology at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, warned of dangerous consequences for society if dishonesty and untrustworthiness become the norm.