In recent years, the term “Mandela Effect” has gained quite a bit of attention and growing popularity… or has it? Are we remembering that correctly? Maybe the Mandela Effect has been around a lot longer than we can recall. Obviously, the experience of incorrectly remembering events on a large scale is not a new phenomenon in the human experience, but putting a label on it and exploring it is still a fairly new idea.
The Mandela Effect, which is now an umbrella term, originated from a large portion of the population misremembering Nelson Mandela dying in 1980, when he didn’t actually do so until 2013.
This weird psychological phenomenon can be exemplified in a number of things from misremembered song lyrics, to misremembered popular brand logos, or in the case of misremembering Ed McMahon being the face of the Publisher’s Clearing House. Psychologists are still studying the reasons behind humans being so susceptible to faulty memories, but there’s no doubt that this is indeed the case.
One possible concern in the modern age is that the internet is giving rise to the spread of misinformation on a larger scale and the Mandela Effect is becoming more common.
Some things individuals can do to protect themselves from falling prey to false memories are to write events down as they occur, to get information from a wide array of sources, and to maintain the understanding that our personal memories may not be the whole truth.
Infographic by: online-psychology-degrees
