Is Your Personality Based on False Memories?

We’re going to start this article with an exercise. Cast your mind back to an evocative memory. It could be positive or negative. Think about the details of the scene: where you were, what you did, what was said. You can probably see everything vividly: colors, facial expressions. You may even hear the precise tone in people’s voices. 

Now, what if I told you that memory is closer to a figment of your imagination than reality? That, actually, all the memories you believe define you and guide your decision-making aren’t all that accurate? That some memories are altogether false? 

It sounds crazy, but countless studies confirm it. Our memories can’t be trusted, and that may have serious implications for what we think we know about ourselves.

Memory: The Most Notorious Unreliable Narrator

No matter how strong your memory seems, chances are that what you recall isn’t as accurate as you think. 

“The sad truth is that our memories of the past are notoriously susceptible to inaccuracy,” says Hal McDonald, Ph.D., professor at Mars Hill University and author of The Anatomists. 

He goes on to say that human memory is constructive (filling in missing information) rather than reproductive (storing information to be retrieved later).

“When we retrieve a memory, we have the impression of calling up a video recording and pressing ‘play,’ like watching a YouTube video,” McDonald says. “That impression, however convincing, is an illusion. Our memory is actually a reconstruction cobbled together from traces stored in various parts of our brain—more like an improv theater production than a movie.”

Because your brain remembers by assembling tangents together rather than clicking rewind, your memories are inherently distorted. They’re influenced by factors like your mood, what you’ve been told and the reason you’re recalling that memory in the first place.

“Like an improv theater production, every time we construct a mental representation of a past event in our conscious mind, we construct a slightly different version of it,” McDonald says. “These changes are subtle, but over time, they can completely reshape the memory.”

The Memories You Never Had

But that’s just the beginning. See, not only can our memories be inaccurate; they can even be entirely made up. “Some memories are false in all details,” says McDonald. “The remembered event never occurred, or if it did occur, it was someone else’s experience and not our own, no matter how vividly we may remember it ourselves.”

We remember something we didn’t ever experience? How can that be? 

According to the psychologist Daneil Schacter, a pioneer in the field of human memory research, it boils down to two psychological tricks: suggestibility and misattribution.

“Suggestibility, as the name implies, involves someone suggesting to us—intentionally or otherwise—that we experienced something in our past, but simply do not remember it,”  McDonald says. To illustrate, he tells me a story that his mother once shared with him, about a young McDonald and his father comically tripping up over a curb. 

“When she told me about it, I had no recollection of the event,” he continues. “The funny thing is, after she told me, I replayed it so many times that I now have a very vivid memory of that experience—even though I drew a total blank the first time I heard the story.”

That’s exactly how suggestibility works: if we hear a story we’re supposed to be in, with enough detail, our brains begin to join the dots. “We can very easily become convinced that we did, in fact, live that experience, and even share it with great conviction,” McDonald says.

The other type of false memory stems from misattribution. McDonald explains this as “an experience that happened to someone else, but which we come to believe, often through repeated exposure, happened to us.” 

For example, you may have fond memories of going to Disneyland as a child after watching TV adverts. Or you may be able to vividly recount a dramatic night out with friends, even though you only heard about it. 

“We may hear of an amazing or shocking event that happened to someone else, and then share it with friends because it is so interesting,” explains McDonald. “Each time we share the story we reconstruct it, just as we do when we retrieve memories. With enough reconstructions, we come to believe we lived the event ourselves.”

False Memories, False Identity? 

The fact that human memory is so unreliable has pretty intense implications for our personalities. After all, who we believe we are, the decisions we make and the relationships we hold close are all shaped by our memories—they’re our foundations. 

Their shakiness raises a pretty existential question: if memories are unreliable, who are we really? 

“Our autobiographical memories, to a large extent, are our identities,” says McDonald. “All of the experiences we have had and the way we react to the memory of these experiences, evolve into a life narrative that we conceive of as our ‘self’.’” 

In that sense, it’s not past events themselves that shape our personalities, but our perspective on them. As an example, McDonald cites the common memory of stuttering or freezing while public speaking in high school. 

“If we remember that event as one of those adolescent embarrassments that happen to most people, the memory becomes material for a funny story and nothing more,” says McDonald. “If we remember [it] as a personal humiliation, that memory can become an unfortunate part of who we are, defining us as someone who is incapable of speaking in front of people.”

In Defence of Forgetfulness

While it’s surprising to realize just how unreliable our memories are, knowing they’re riddled with bias can actually be pretty empowering—especially when it comes to difficult or cringe-worthy moments.

Take that embarrassing high school speech. As McDonald suggests, instead of seeing it as proof you're not cut out for public speaking, you could view it as a moment of stepping outside your comfort zone and showing courage. This shift in perspective is what’s known as memory reframing—rewriting the emotions tied to past events, and replacing self-criticism with self-compassion.

Reframing doesn’t just help you make peace with the past—it can also boost your confidence in future situations. “The same parts of our brain that are active when we’re remembering are also active when we’re imagining the future,” explains McDonald. 

In essence, by reevaluating your memories, you’re training your brain to approach new challenges with a more positive mindset.

And as McDonald shares, there’s no need to worry about having false or inaccurate memories. “It’s 100% normal,” he notes. What’s more important, then, is not accuracy, but perspective. Ultimately, your memory is your internal narrator. So, make sure you choose to remember things in a way that builds your confidence, instead of taking it away.