Paper short abstract:

This paper summarizes the results of empirical study to shed light on the social basis of consumers' price perception, developing analysis from the sociological (instead economic or psychological) point of view.

Paper long abstract:

This paper attempts to deconstruct the perception of market prices on the part of Russian consumers, based on the assumption that regularity and large-scale involvement in market exchange is possible only if prices which mediate it are socially legitimate. In the last decade the social legitimacy of prices has started to be questioned in light of increases in consumer prices as an outcome of economic crises. Data from in-depth interviews with economically active residents of Moscow is analyzed using the methodology of grounded theory, and demonstrates that the interpretation of price can be thematized according to four main areas: "not to be deceived," "it is not a poor person who checks prices, but a smart one," "people "like me" buy at those prices," and "not every product can be bought without regard to the price." The study supports the hypothesis that Russian consumers are more and more artfully mastering the grammar of the market price. From a sociological point of view this observation refers to an entire group of theories (with classic origins) about the increasing rationalization of society, which at the beginning of the twenty first century is translated at the level of everyday life as a demand for calculative social behavior. The paper documents the way Russian consumers have increasingly engaged with prices as part of the process of marketisation.