It's what wives and girlfriends have long suspected - and for good reason. If anything, this is only going to make us women that little bit more suspicious, because a study has found that just the sight of an attractive woman can make a man more dishonest.

It tells us what I'm sure many of us already expected, that male brains are so deeply hard-wired to compete for a mate that their devious side can be awakened simply by suggestive photographs.

It found that men were more likely to pocket small sums of money they were not entitled to after looking at images of beautiful women in seductive poses.

In test at Taiwan's National Sun Yat-sen University, 74 men in their late teens and early twenties were split into two groups. With one group viewing a series of sexualized (though not explicit pictures), while the other group looked at non-sexual images of women.

After they all completed a self-control test, being asked to swiftly identify colours written in an incongruent setting. For example, the word 'red' against a blue background.

Each participant had been promised 120 Taiwanese dollars (NZD $5.60) for their time but at the end of the day when they were finished they all got handed an envelope containing 170 Taiwanese dollars (NZD $8).

Those participants who had seen the suggestive pictures were found to be more than twice as likely to walk off with the extra cash, with only 54% honestly handing back the excess, compared to the 78% of the other group who didn't see any suggestive images.

The study, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour said: "Exposure to mating-evoked stimuli- for example, pictures of sexually appealing women - leads to lower self-control and increase dishonesty among men. This research demonstrates that beautiful women can seduce men away from behaving honestly and may more readily attract males who lie."

British psychosexual counsellor Pauline Brown said, "These results were seen with racy pictures so we can only image how the effect will be amplified by men viewing pornography. Often I treat couples where the man has been living almost a secret double life involving porn, and dishonestly has become part of his everyday routine".

"We will soon see the profound corrosive effects of having sexual material so readily available as this millennium generation grows up."