The Mandela effect refers to a situation in which a large mass of people believes that an event occurred when it did not. It describes a situation in which a person or a group of people have a false memory of an event.
The term ‘Mandela effect’ was first coined in 2009 by Fiona Broome when she created a website to detail her observance of the phenomenon. Factors that can influence memory include misinformation and misattribution of the original source of the information
When Fiona Broome coined the term over a decade ago, she created a website detailing her recollections of former South African President Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s.
However, Nelson Mandela did not die in prison in the 1980s. He served 27 years in prison and served as president of South Africa between 1994 and 1999 and passed away in 2013.
Despite these facts, Broome seemed to remember international news coverage of Mandela’s death from the 1980s. She even found others who have almost identical memories of Mandela’s death in the twentieth century
.Causes
1.False memories
The concept of false memories provides one potential explanation for the Mandela effect.
False memories are untrue or distorted recollections of an event. Some false memories contain elements of fact, closely resembling the actual event in question. However, others are entirely false
Although the idea of false memories causes discomfort for some people, memory mistakes are quite common. Memory does not work like a camera, objectively cataloging images, events, and statements in their purest forms. Emotions and personal bias can both influence memories
2.Confabulation
Confabulation is another potential mechanism underlying false memories and the Mandela effect.
Confabulations are false statements or retellings of events that lack relevant evidence or factual support. Although confabulations are technically false statements, the speaker will regard these statements as fact.
According to Lisa Bortolotti, a philosophy professor from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, people do not intentionally confabulate
3.Priming
In psychology, priming describes a phenomenon in which exposure to a stimulus directly influences a person’s response to a subsequent stimulus. For example, if a person reads or hears the word “grass,” they will recognize another related word, such as “tree” or “lawnmower,” more quickly than an unrelated word.
Priming is also known as suggestibility. It can influence a person’s reactions and memory. For instance, the phrase, “Did you grab the red ball from the shelf?” is much more suggestive than the phrase, “Did you take anything from the shelf?”
This is because the second phrase contains a general, open-ended question, while the first describes the action of grabbing a specific object: “the” red ball. Therefore, the first phrase has a stronger influence on memory than the second phrase
.Alternate realities and parallel universe
Broome describes the Mandela effect as a clear memory of an event that never occurred in this reality. Her explanation ties into several popular theories that suggest that the Mandela effect occurs when our reality interacts with other alternate realities or parallel universes.
The concept of alternate realities originates from quantum physics and string theory. This theoretical framework explains the universe and the very nature of reality in terms of tiny strings that vibrate in 10 dimensions.
Based on string theory, one can assert that our universe is only one of many, potentially infinite, other universes. This is known as the multiverse. Although the mathematical foundation of string theory works, the theory itself remains unproven and highly controversial
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