The role psychology and economics jointly play in decisions about food, public health, personal finance and sustainability will be examined in a newly approved concentration of the MPS (Master of Professional Studies) in Agriculture and Life Sciences Program in Applied Behavioral Economics and Individual Choice, offered by the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management in Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Cornell’s newest MPS concentration is a chance to work with faculty members whose quirky experiments (like Brian Wansink’s “Bottomless Soup Bowl”) lead to fundamental improvements in school lunchrooms (David R. Just) across the country; who wonder why label-reading shoppers continue to buy junk food (Harry Kaiser); and whose analyses track property values near Superfund cleanup sites (William Schulze). Other key faculty include Vicki L. Bogan, associate professor of applied economics and management, and Jurate Liaukonyte, assistant professor of applied economics and management.

“Behavioral economics is a relatively new science with a distinguished history at Cornell,” said Just, associate professor and director of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition. He points to research pioneers like Richard Thaler (formerly in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management), who is universally regarded as a founder of the discipline, and Thomas Gilovich, Cornell’s Irene Blecker Rosenfeld Professor of Psychology, who is a widely acknowledged expert in the psychology of everyday judgment and decision-making.

“Now we’re ready to build on this reputation by training a new generation of business and policy decision-makers,” said Just. Students in the two-semester master’s program can choose among three areas of focus: behavioral marketing, sustainability and behavior, or behavioral finance.

Applicants to this new MPS concentration are expected to come from undergraduate backgrounds ranging from nutrition, psychology and marketing to economics and business, Just said, “but we’re prepared to be surprised. We will consider anyone who is curious about why people make the decisions they do, and who wants to change the way the world thinks about food marketing, consumer research, consumer research and public policy.”