This introductory text is devoted to exposing the underlying nature of price formation in financial markets as a predominantly sociological phenomenon that relates individual decision-making to emergent and co-evolving social and financial structures.

Two different levels of this sociological influence are considered: First, we examine how price formation results from the social dynamics of interacting individuals, where interaction occurs either through the price or by direct communication. Then the same processes are revisited and examined at the level of larger groups of...