Social cryptomnesia

Social cryptomnesia is a psychological and sociological idea. It is a cognitive bias experienced by entire cultures following social change. Cryptomnesia refers to an implicit memory phenomenon of an individual’s false belief that their idea is original; however, in reality, they have previously come across the said idea and have forgotten that they did. Cryptomnesia is likely to occur when there is source confusion, the error in identifying a memory’s source, due to high cognitive load at the time when the idea was first considered. This is in line with the Cognitive Load Theory, suggesting that humans have a limited capacity in their working memory, and when it is overloaded or impacted due to factors like stress, individuals can have the tendency to avoid the source of incoming information. Social cryptomnesia is a failure to remember the origin of a change, in which people know that a change has occurred in society, but forget how this change occurred; that is, the steps that were taken to bring this change about, and who took these steps. This may lead to reduced social credit towards the minorities who made major sacrifices that led to the change in societal values. A minority group is defined as any group that is marginalized in the society they live in due to cultural or physical characteristics. They face unfair treatment and are discriminated against. Minority groups in a society can also be referred to as the “subordinate group”, whereas the majority of people are called the “dominant group”. The Scapegoat Theory suggests that dominant groups can position “unfocused aggression” on minorities. Throughout history, there have been several notable social movements of minorities leading to revolutions; while the revolutions are remembered by the public, those who have been leading the change have often been forgotten. So, the societal system favors the dominant groups without giving credit to minorities. Social cryptomnesia is described as collective oblivion with social control.