BY ANANYA SAWARKAR
Oh! the world of psychology, isn’t it so intriguing? Understanding the human mind, knowing why we behave the way we do or reading someone else’s mind. Well, you can’t really read someone’s mind per se but, you can understand some aspects of the human mind and understand people’s behaviours in different situations.
Let’s take a look at 4 psychological effects that will keep you intrigued in the world of psychology.
- The Mandela Effect-
The Mandela Effect refers to situations where large groups of people believe that an event occurred even though it didn’t.
The term ‘Mandela effect’ was first coined by Fiona Broome in 2009. She was at a conference interacting with other people about her memory of Nelson Mandela’s death in a prison in South Africa in the 1980s. However, that wasn’t the case. Nelson Mandela didn’t pass away in the 1980s, it was 2013. After conversing with several other people, she realised that she wasn’t the only one. There were several others like Broome who taught at the same time.
Broome was baffled that such a large number of people could remember the exact same event in great detail even though it never happened.
Let’s take a look at some examples that might just trick your mind.
I know it doesn’t make sense but the cartoon is in fact Looney ‘Tunes’.
Newsflash! The Monopoly Man doesn’t have a monocle.
Though many of us clearly remember black detailing on the Pikachu’s tail, it’s just yellow.
There could be several factors at play such as alternate realities, false memories, etc that could’ve made you experience the Mandela Effect.
- Birthday number effect-
The Birthday number effect is a subconscious tendency of people wherein they prefer the numbers in their date of birth over other numbers.
This effect is most prominent for numbers over 12.
- Bezold Effect-
The Bezold effect is an optical illusion named after Wilhelm von Bezold (1837–1907), a German meteorology professor who observed that colour might seem differently based on its relationship to nearby colours.
It is possible to generate an assimilation effect known as the von Bezold spreading effect, which is equivalent to spatial colour mixing.
Let’s take a look at some examples;
Believe it or not, the blue colour does not change at all!
- Kewpie doll effect-
The Kewpie doll effect is a phenomenon commonly referred to in developmental psychology to explain how a child’s physical traits, such as a long forehead, round face, etc encourage the infant’s caregiver to take good care of them. The physical features of the child are claimed to mimic those of a Kewpie doll.
This is what the Kewpie doll’s look like.
