A modern day Diogenes, it appears, also would have to look far and wide to find an honest man or woman, and even longer to find an honest teenager.

Results of a survey of American high school students was released recently by the Josephson Institute’s Center for Youth Ethics. The survey focused on three areas of dishonesty — stealing, lying and cheating — and the results were depressing.

More than a third of the boys and a quarter of the girls surveyed admitted stealing from a store in the past year. Twenty percent said they had stolen something from a friend — a friend! About 83 percent of all students said they had lied to their parents about something significant in the last year and 42 percent had lied to save money.

As pointed out in a Journal-World story this week, creative students are making increased use of high technology that makes it more difficult to detect people cheating on tests. According to the Josephson survey, 64 percent of students had cheated on a test during the past year (38 percent, more than once). More than a third had used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment.

And, perhaps most disturbing, 93 percent of the students said they were “satisfied with their personal ethics and character” and 77 percent said “when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.”

The “well, if everyone else is doing it…” excuse is nothing new. It’s a tempting rationalization even for adults, but what has happened to our inner compasses that tell us to rise above the kind of crowd mentality that contributed to the trampling death of a Wal-Mart employee on the day after Thanksgiving?

Unfortunately, it seems that the attitude of the teens in the Josephson survey may simply be a reflection of the attitudes the young people see in their parents and other adults. Particularly in a difficult economy, ethical behavior sometimes can take a back seat to financial concerns.

The concept of doing the “right” thing may not be as prevalent now as it once was, but most of us, if we stop and think, still understand that idea. We know what it feels like to be the friend who is stolen from. Most of us have felt the guilt of cheating, even if we got away with it. Lying hurts relationships and damages our integrity.

Maybe the concept of integrity doesn’t mean much to a teenager, but as you get older, you realize that your reputation for honesty and ethical behavior is far more important than anything you gain through cheating or stealing. It’s a lesson we perhaps should be trying harder to share with the young people in our lives.