THINKER'S ALMANAC - December 5

Subject: False Memory - The Mandela Effect

Event:  Death of Nelson Mandela, 2013

 

In my country we go to prison first and then become President. -Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, died on this day in 2013.  Before he died, however, a number of people were under the incorrect presumption that he had died while being held as a political prisoner in South Africa in the 1980s.  

One person who realized her error was Fiona Broome.  In 2009, she was at a conference and realized that she was not alone in her belief that Mandela had died in prison.  Many of the people she talked to at the conference shared her memory of Mandela’s death.  

Shocked by the phenomenon of so many people being so wrong about a shared memory, Broome decided to publish a website to document other instances of what she called the Mandela effect.

Just as individuals can form false memories, groups of people can form collective false memories.  Psychologists believe this happens because of a concept known as “confabulation”: the process by which we produce false memories unconsciously without any intention of deceiving anyone. As we attempt to recall a memory, we cannot recall everything, so we confabulate by filling in the gaps of our memory with details that feel correct but that are not entirely accurate.  When we confabulate, we’re not lying; instead, we generate false memories without any intent to deceive anyone, genuinely believing we have recalled the memory correctly.

For example, many people remember the famous Darth Vader line from The Empire Strikes Back as “Luke, I am your father.”  However, Vader actually says “No, I am your father.”  It’s a small difference; however, thanks to the Mandela effect, the wrong version of the movie line has become the standard line that people quote.

Try this trivia question:  Was Alexander Hamilton ever President of the United States?  

The answer is no; however, many will falsely claim that he was.  This makes sense when you think about how our memories are organized.  We encode our memories using categories and associations called schemas.  Since Hamilton fits well in the Founding Fathers/Presidents category of our memories, we might mistakenly believe that he actually was president.  This is the same false cognitive leap that some people make with Benjamin Franklin:  because he played a large role in the founding of the United States, because he is a distinctive voice in American history, and because we see his face on U.S. currency, we might believe he was president.  Franklin, however, never served as president.

Challenge - What’s in a Name?: Another well-known psychological effect, named for a famous person, is the “Benjamin Franklin Effect.”  Do some research on the specifics of this effect.  Explain what it is and what it has to do with Benjamin Franklin.

Sources:

1-Cuncic, Arlin. “What Is the Mandela Effect?” Verywellmind.com 17 September 2020.