The idea of trying to persuade other people to change their thoughts or behaviour can make us feel uncomfortable — it is easy to imagine a powerful individual brainwashing a weak-willed individual into changing their opinions about a topic. However, the truth of the matter is that we all engage in social influence every day. We constantly attempt to persuade others to change their thoughts, behaviours or opinions, and, in turn, others constantly attempt to persuade us.
One of the first social psychologists to study conformity was Solomon Asch (1951). In his most famous study, a participant sat with the other apparent participants. Asch showed the participants a piece of paper with a line drawn on it (called the test line). The participants were then shown three other lines of different lengths, and simply had to state which of these example lines matched the length of the test line.
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