ABSTRACT
People are social beings who are strongly influenced by the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of others in the surrounding. One of the first researchers to illustrate the power of the social environment experimentally was Muzafer Sherif (1937). In a pitch-dark room he projected a stationary, small point of light on to the wall. In such cases, the point of light appears to move slightly due to a phenomenon of visual perception called the autokinetic effect. He then placed test subjects one by one in the dark room and asked them whether or not the point of light was moving, and if so how big the movement was. This first part of the experiment revealed that most participants tended see the light moving, but that everyone had different opinions as to how big the movement was.
