Which brings up another issue with the study. If you use the "rational actors" canard of Econ101. Everyone asked is trying to maximize their economic utility.

So the opportunity cost of inaction beats action. The study should at least require some form of action of roughly equal cost(liabilities and pyhsical action) to occur in order to zero out this input.

I'd also like to rebuff the "action == moral code" statement. There is nothing more common than action that flies in the face of your moral code. Thus the "let he who is without sin" truism.

Effecting a utilitarian outcome despite your moral code does not make it moral in the eyes of the person acting, and it can denote either courage or cowardice.