Gift boxes are seen in New York

Wrapping up that unwanted picture frame from last Christmas and giving it to someone else as a gift might not be as taboo as it once was, according to a study.

The survey of 1,505 American adults, conducted by market research firm Harris Interactive, found that over half of the respondents admitted to "re-gifting" with passing on gifts becoming a far more common and acceptable phenomenon.

In fact 78 percent of consumers who were polled felt that it was acceptable to re-gift some or most of the time.

Nancy Wong, a spokeswoman for Harris Interactive, said she was surprised by the number of people who admitted to re-gifting.

"It's not something I've thought about and when I saw that over half had done it -- 52 percent have re-gifted and or would re-gift -- it's quite a significant number," Wong said.

According to the survey, the mostly commonly re-gifted items were decorative household items, such as vases, paintings, picture frames and other trinkets.

Wong said that while 77 percent of respondents said they re-gifted because the item was perfectly suited to the new recipient.

The study showed that nine percent of people admitted that they re-gifted out of laziness to purchase a new gift and four percent confessed that they re-gifted out of dislike for the recipient.