What Parts of Microeconomics Are Actually Relevant to Human Behaviour?

Dave mentioned in his last post that when preferences are revealed in the private market (under certain conditions) they provide ample information about willingness to pay, and that when this ocurs, a willingness to pay survey isn't really required.

My first thought was that the willingness to pay survey about car-parking spaces was probably a waste of money. But I'm also quite interested in the conditions for when revealed preferences are deemed to be satisfactorily derived from consumer choice.

Consumer choice is something I was reading about over the weekend, and it strikes me as the element of microeconomic theory that I will get most value out of studying over the next few years. All of the applications that I am being exposed to at the moment revolve around Industrial Organisation, and I must admit that the pricing strategies of commercial enterprises is something that won't continue to engage my intellectual interest to a large extent.

I actually fear that the study of graduate microeconomics currently features a growing emphasis on the field of industrial organisation. Even after the theory of the firm is done, most parts of game theory and information economics are about firm-level behaviour. Certainly, game theory can be said to be at it most realistic when applied to firm behaviour, but it must be remembered that some of us don't want to be specialists in firm-level behaviour.

Consumer choice (or "individual choice" as I am currently preferring to call it) and household behaviour are elements that I hope will be emphasised (or at least equally represented) when I take micro studies at PhD level. I really feel strongly that there is minimal benefit from studying firm theory at the highest level, when one is researching individual and household behaviour. Indeed, one might suggest that in years to come there might be a fragmentation of micro at PhD level, firstly into mezzo (or firm level) micro for graduate students researching Ind Org and Int Trade. And secondly into micro-micro (or individual level micro) for graduate students researching human behaviour, aswell as risk and welfare.

One might suggest that graduate students need to know all the theory before they choose a topic, but surely its reasonable to suggest that by the time a grad student starts year 2 of their studies, they should have an inkling of whether they'll look at firm-level or individual-level behaviour? A bit far-reaching I know, but I think its an important debate.