High-pressure Raman scattering studies are performed on p-terphenyl up to 5 GPa. The Raman activities of different symmetric molecules were analyzed by means of group theory methods. A phase transition was detected at 1.3 GPa from changes in the slope on plots of frequency versus pressure. The diminishing of internal modes indicated that the molecule symmetry transformed from C-2 to D-2h. This is an effective method for detecting planar molecular structure of p-terphenyl by ring-ring stretching vibration mode, which can provide a new spectroscopic evidence of planar conjugated polyphenyl molecular conformation. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.