por He associationism It is a current of psychology that tries to explain the mental phenomena of human beings from the connection of ideas, images or representations.
This movement analyzes the way in which thoughts are combined by virtue of their similarity, proximity or contrast, giving rise to creative behavior and reasoning.
Associationism arose in the United Kingdom in the 19th century. However, the empirical philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries had already reflected on this concept, establishing the foundations of psychological behaviorism.
According to this movement, the ability to think is based on mental association, either joining similar ideas, connecting contiguous elements, or starting from a cause and effect relationship.
Among the main thinkers of associationism are the philosophers John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776), and the psychologists Iván Pávlov (1849-1936), John Watson (1878-1958) and Burrhus Skinner (1904 -1990).
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Origin of associationism
Associationism has its origin in empiricism, a philosophical theory that highlighted the role of experience in learning and the induction of knowledge.
This current, opposed to rationalism, arose and developed between the 17th and 18th centuries in the United Kingdom. His main theorists were:
John Locke (1632–1704)
Following the postulates of Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC), this thinker affirmed that people were born without any innate ability and that they learned to form representations based on experience and not from reasoning.
According to his vision, simple ideas came from sensations and complex ones from the association of ideas.
David Hume (1711-1776)
He believed that all human knowledge had its origin in perceptions. Within these he distinguished two categories: impressions, made up of sensations of pleasure and pain from everything seen, heard and experienced; and the ideas, which arose from reflection on these sensations, which generated emotions.
David Hartley (1705-1757)
Like the previous ones, he considered that the human mind was born blank and that ideas arose from experience, but also from associations, the senses, imagination and reason.
In addition, he believed that in the nervous system there were vibratory actions that corresponded to thoughts and images, where the most intense alluded to sensations and the least accentuated to ideas.
James Mill (1773-1836)
He postulated that consciousness was the result of the law of association, combining simple elements that were captured through the senses. In turn, he pointed out that emotions were the result of simple feelings united by new links, which gave rise to other more complex ones.
Theory of associationism
The associationism tries to explain the mental phenomena and psychic questions of the human beings from the association of ideas and representations captured by the senses.
According to this theory, knowledge is acquired through experience, linked to the different sensations produced by stimuli. In turn, as new connections are added, thinking becomes more and more complex.
This association of ideas can occur in 3 ways: by similarity, contiguity or from a cause and effect relationship.
Likeness
According to this theory, representations and ideas of a similar nature are united in the mind that make it possible to relate and link stimuli.
Contiguity
In this case, different elements are connected but that occur closely at a certain time and place, creating new ideas.
Cause and effect relationship
Finally, in this third category sensations, ideas, images and reasoning are associated based on the cause and effect relationship that exists between them.
Contributions of associationism to psychology
Associationism was primarily linked to the field of philosophy until the advent of behaviorism in the early 20th century.
This current of psychology based its analysis on the study of people’s behavior in relation to the environment, leaving mental processes, emotions and feelings aside.
By seeking to investigate human behavior from the observable, the association theory became one of his main pillars for his experiments and empirical verifications. Following their reasoning, they considered that exposure to two contiguous stimuli produced a link between them.
Within this framework, two concepts stood out: classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning
It was developed by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) based on his experiments with dogs. This Russian psychologist detected that, after bringing food closer to the animals’ mouths, they began to secrete saliva through their mouths.
Then he realized that, even without the presence of food, its mere appearance in the laboratory caused salivation, since the dogs associated it with receiving it.
Later he began to apply different auditory and visual stimuli, such as playing a campaign before giving them food. After several repetitions, the dogs also began to salivate upon hearing this noise, which was termed the «experientially conditioned reflex.»
human research
The psychologist John Watson (1878-1958) decided to apply the same research methodology as Pavlov in humans. To do this, he carried out an experiment with an 11-month-old boy, to whom he sought to associate a scary noise stimulus, caused by a hammer blow on a metal plate, with the presence of a rat, which until then was a neutral element. .
After a series of repetitions, the mere appearance of the rat already caused fear in the child, even when the noise was not present.
In this way it was discovered that certain stimuli were capable of generating a direct response in people, such as pain, fear or pleasure, in a physiological way. This learned behavior is the most common mechanism for acquiring phobias.
Operant conditioning
This concept, developed by Burrhus Skinner (1904-1990), is based on the idea that people learn by associating what they do with the consequences of their actions.
As an experiment, he put a hungry rat in a cage and rewarded it with food each time it pushed a mechanical lever. In this way, he verified that there were more probabilities of repeating behaviors that generated a positive stimulus and less probabilities of repeating those that brought negative consequences.
This theory was later used in the field of pedagogy and learning.
References
Publishers of Springer. Associationism. Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Available at: link.springer.com
Associationism, Collins dictionary. Available at: collinsdictionary.com
Fields, L. (1972). Dictionary of Learning Psychology. Editorial Science of Behavior. Mexico.
Skinner, B. (1974). About behaviorism. Editorial Fontana. Barcelona. Spain.
Watson, J. (1961). behaviorism. Editorial Paidos. Buenos Aires. Argentina.
Garcia-Allen, Jonathan. Classical conditioning and its most important experiments. Available at: psicologiaymente.com
Associationism, Wikipedia. Available at: wikipedia.org