I don’t really know what led me to think of the “mandela effect”. This is quite a new concept in psychology and gained popularity only in the 2010s.
The Mandela effect is an unusual phenomenon where a large group of people remember something differently than how it occurred.
Conspiracy theorists believe this is proof of an alternate universe, while many doctors use it as an illustration of how imperfect memory can be sometimes. source Healthline website
The origin of the concept is well described in this article by Alexandru Micu The Mandela effect: how groups of people can all remember the wrong thing
“Our memory is imperfect. We can recall some things differently from how they happened, even remember things that never happened. Sometimes, however, larger groups of people can misremember something the same way. '(…)
Psychologists call these collective false memories — or just ‘false memories’ for individuals. It’s also commonly known as the ‘Mandela effect’, so christened by “paranormal consultant” Fiona Broome around 2010.
In 2009, Broome attended a conference and talked with other people about how she remembered Nelson Mandela dying in a South African prison in the 1980s. They seemed to agree with her. (…)
Broome eventually realized her mistake and shared the story with her friends for a laugh, but soon realized that they too misremembered the dates. They even shared having memories of news coverage of Mandela’s death and a speech by his widow. Others she asked said they remembered his death in the 80’s as well. (…)
Whether Mrs. Broome was being genuine or just working on establishing her new audience, we can’t know. But she is right in pointing out that collective false memories are a real phenomenon.” read the full article here
“Human memory isn’t perfect, but it was never meant to be perfect. It was meant to keep us alive.”
Maybe you are among the ones who also remember the death of Nelson Mandela in the early 80s or you remember a popular movie starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt called Interview with a Vampire … Hell (!) no, the real title is Interview with THE Vampire.
There are many examples of “Mandela Effect”, if you search on Google you’ll find countless examples of brands true name that are recalled with a different spelling, for instance the footwear brand Skechers doesn’t write Sketchers (I was sure it had a T!) . There are also many examples of mascots that are different in people’s memories such as Pikachu (he never had a black end on his tail) and the all time most famous line “Luke, I am your father” while in Starwars, the line is actually “No, I am your father” !
Those references may seem quite trivial, it’s only marketing or pop culture but there are also some collective false memories of historic events such as the year of the death of Neil Armstrong, the behavior of Jackie Kennedy when JFK was killed in 1963, what happened to the young student on the Tiananmen square when surrounded by tanks in 1989 or the date of the canonization of Mother Teresa.
Some argue this prove there are alternate realities, other consider collective false memories as a demonstration of what can influence our memories which is priming, group influence or emotions among others. Fake news spreading online is also an important source of “Mandela Effect” as the information seem real and may stick on the person’s memory.
Share your own “Mandela effect” examples, I may have the same false memories !
More on the topic :
Website dedicated to the Mandela effect
What Is the Mandela Effect? - article on VeryWellMind website
TEDx video The Mystery Behind the Mandela Effect | Bri Bennage | TEDxYouth@OCSA
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Good article, thank you!
This effect could be due to the fact people are not listening carefully on what they hear or maybe because people are not sufficiently “connected” to the speaker. This strange phenomenon could also show that people use “filters” that could avoid them to get the good message (emotions, history, …). A solution could be that people use basic tools in communication, like rephrasing, actively listening… this Mandela effect is a bit linked to what we call in French “téléphone arabe” (sorry, don’t know the English translation:-))