False Memories And The Mandela Effect

Friday, 9 September 2022, 9:22 am
Opinion: Hugh Grant

The human memory is a complicated thing. Most people understand it isn’t infallible; forgetting information is common. Despite that, most people still think the memories they do possess are accurate. Unfortunately, that isn’t always true. In a recent memory study, 76% of people failed to recall information accurately. Perhaps even scarier, 30% of people could be convinced of experiencing a false autobiographical event. They can believe something happened to them in their own life, even if it never happened.

What do we do when we discover we’ve misremembered something? Asking someone else for their recollection is common enough, yet it may not be enough to guarantee the truth. Enter the Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect was discovered by paranormal expert Fiona Broome in 2009. Even though former South African president Nelson Mandela was alive at the time, a large group of people believed he had actually passed away in 1980, long before his presidency. Today, the Mandela Effect is an umbrella term for any instance in which a large group of people all misremember a specific detail or event the same way. It is a collective form of delusion.

Numerous examples of the Mandela Effect remain popular in our society. In the famous movie Star Wars Episode V, numerous fans misremember the plot-twisting line as “Luke, I am your father.” In reality, the line is “no, I am your father. Another well-known instance is from The Berenstain Bears children’s book series. People commonly misspell the author’s name as “Berenstein,” and some even claim to own books in print with the spelling mistake on the front. These examples are relatively innocent, but their implications can be disturbing.

Causes of the Mandela Effect are not fully understood. Some believe the Mandela Effect to be evidence of the multiverse, implying that people who remember things another way are from another universe. Others point to the Mandela Effect as a sign of a government conspiracy, though the purported objective varies. All of these explanations are comforting in a way; people experiencing the Mandela Effect aren’t wrong, the world around them is.

Unfortunately, psychologists have a theory that places the cause of the Mandela Effect squarely with the humans affected. There are a number of reasons individuals may not remember something correctly. Sometimes people conflate their imaginations with reality. Other times they forget the true source of a memory and may replace an unreliable source with a reliable one, or rumor with reality. Once the false memory forms in an individual, they spread it among their social group. Humans as a species value conformity, so it is common for people to adjust their views in accordance with their surrounding group. Even people with doubts may set them aside to achieve social harmony. And so the collective fake reality is born.

Right now, known instances of the Mandela Effect are limited in scope. However, that may not remain true. Modern technologies like the internet and audiovisual editing software is making it possible for misinformation to spread further and faster than ever before. Lies and rumors are 70% more likely to win out over factual information. Linda Levine, memory psychologist at the University of California, has described this possible future as “legitimately worrisome.”

What can people do to resist the Mandela Effect? The first thing to do is recognize that no one is immune. No matter how intelligent or knowledgeable a person is, they can still be fooled by misinformation. The next step is to fact check important news before spreading it. Read from a wide variety of news outlets to avoid a narrow and susceptible perspective.

© Scoop Media