By: Nandika Dusi, Research Analyst, GSDN
In the story of Snow White, we all remember the Evil queen say, “Mirror, mirror on the wall”, if you do not recall, congratulations for being in the population of roughly 15% of people who recall it correctly as “Magic Mirror on the wall” from the 1937 Disney Snow White movie. Now for the rest of 85% of us, we have been tricked by our minds and publicly collectively misremember the quote. This can be explained through the concept of the psychological phenomenon ‘The Mandela Effect.’
The Mandela Effect is a phenomenon in which a group of people collectively misremember facts, events, or other details in a consistent manner. Paranormal researcher and author Fiona Broome conceptualized the fact the effect after discovering that she and others possessed a strong false memory of the South-African anti-apartheid and later president, Nelson Mandela while in prison during the 1980s.
Origin of the Mandela Effect
Fiona Broome had vividly yet falsely recalled Mandela’s death during the 1980s while he was in prison, she recalled his widow’s speech and riots in the city. When she learnt he was alive, she brushed this off as a misunderstanding, but through conversations with security staff members at a science fiction and fantasy convention in 2009, many possessed the same false memory about Mandela’s death in prison with similar details of the aftermath.
Broome then created a website for people to share and discuss their memories that did not align with the recorded history, which she later called the Mandela effect. Through thousands of comments and discussions, people uncovered their shared memories which were different from reality. The reality of his life was that he was released from prison in 1990, served for president from 1994 to 1999, and passed away later peacefully in 2013, at the age of ninety-five.
The term was officially coined in 2009. It became an internet phenomenon, where in it inspired a film titled ‘The Mandela Effect’ (2019), making it more popular and known to many to share their stories.
How can all our brains collectively misremember?
Our brains can collectively misremember because the human memory can ‘reconstruct our memories’, which means that our brain rebuilds a memory from fragments instead of true recollection and recording. Considering our minds run on expectations and cultural patterns, through the ‘Schema Theory’ one can explain that we end up filling in the missing gaps with logical explanations.
Another aspect is how the brain engages in “honest lying”, where it may subconsciously fabricate missing details to complete our memories with no intentions of causing harm or deceiving. This phenomenon is known as ‘confabulation’.
Through discussion, conversations, and exchange of thoughts, ideas, and experiences, one may also say that through reinforcement to the misinformation on social media or in pop culture, these factors may also continuously alter and strengthen the false memory, making it just as vivid as a true one.
Such coincidences of thoughts, may they be wrong, may cause conditioning. This phenomenon is also known as ‘accidental conditioning’ or ‘coincidental reinforcement’. This happens when the brain is prone to highly advanced pattern-recognition to connect causes and effects. Psychologists like Elizabeth Loftus, through her studies in 1974, show that the human brain can be easily conditioned to remember things that never happened through the ‘misinformation effect’. Your brain can fabricate a composite false memory to fill the gap and convince you on the otherwise.
Authors like Cynthia Sue Larson in 2013, began arguing that the Mandela Effect is proof on how we live in a multidimensional universe, and instead of a single fixed past, our collective alternative memories suggest groups of people may have “jumped” together from a parallel timeline where history and details were different. Quantum mechanics does describe microscopic superposition and probability waves for subatomic particles, but physicists stress how these rules would not apply to macro-level human memories or alternate historic timelines.
Psychologists and cognitive scientists put a firm emphasis on these claims by pointing out that the human brain does not require concepts like parallel universes and alternate timelines to explain the collective false memories, although jumping timelines is a popular sci-fi concept, decades of peer-reviewed psychological research and studies prove with well-documented explanations why large groups of people misremember the exact same details.
Impact of the Mandela Effect
The Mandela Effect shows how easily collective misinformation and false narratives spread. The practical consequences highlight how legal eyewitness testimonies are frequently flawed, as post-event information easily alters personal recollection. Acknowledging the phenomenon pushes for independent verification of history or political facts to prevent the spread of false narratives.
Intensive police questioning can distort the suspect’s or witness’s memory, leading them to genuinely believe events that never happened. Legal commentary and briefs may utilize the term metaphorically to describe the misinterpretations of legal standards or historical case law.
There is also the concept of a reverse Mandela Effect, which occurs when something you might have thought was a Mandela Effect changes back to your original, correct, or when a shared false memory is replaced by the actual truth.
Common examples
A few common examples are, ‘The Berenstain Bears’ where people imagine the children’s book is spelled with an “a” spelled as ‘Berenstain’, though millions remember it with an “e” as ‘Berenstein’. Another assumption is when the Monopoly man, Rich Uncle Pennybags, the mascot is often recalled wearing a monocle, but he has never worn one. The Kit Kat candy bar is frequently spelled with a hyphen as ‘Kit-Kat’, but the official branding never has added one. Multiple fans recall the Pokémon character having a black tip on his tail, but the tail is completely brown at its base. A lot of people picture Mickey Mouse wearing suspenders, but the classic design has shorts and two large buttons with no shoulder straps.
Conclusion
To put it simply, the Mandela Effect teaches us that our memory is reconstructive and prone to shared social reinforcement rather than proof of science fiction. Psychologists emphasize theories of confabulation, schema theory, and scientific theories with empirical data over untestable and illogical ideas.
Nevertheless, the Mandela Effect is an intriguing case study on the quirks of the human memory, it is an example of how the truth can be stranger than the fiction.
