Associationism

Associationism is a theory that explains complex mental contents through associations among simpler ideas or sensations. It treats learned connections between mental elements as central to thought and, in some versions, behavior.

Association of ideas: A mental connection through which one idea brings another to mind. This is the basic process associationism uses to explain complex thought.
John Locke: An English philosopher whose account of knowledge begins with sensation and reflection. Locke introduced association as a source of connections that can distort judgment.
Nativism: The view that some cognitive structures or knowledge are innate rather than learned. Nativism challenges associationism’s emphasis on experience as the source of mental structure.
Classical conditioning: A form of learning in which a neutral stimulus comes to predict another stimulus. It offers an experimental case of learned associations between stimuli.
Association of ideas in British empiricism: The British empiricist account of how experience links ideas in the mind. Associationism became a central explanation within British empiricist theories of knowledge.
Contiguity: A principle that events or ideas experienced together tend to become associated. Associationists use shared time and place to explain how mental links form.
David Hume: A Scottish philosopher who analyzed thought, causation, and knowledge through experience. Hume identified resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect as principles linking ideas.
Gestalt psychology: A psychological approach that studies organized wholes rather than reducing them to separate elements. Gestalt theorists argued that perception has organization not explained by linking sensations alone.
Operant conditioning: Learning in which consequences alter the likelihood of a behavior recurring. Its account of learned behavior extends associationist themes beyond links between ideas.
Empiricism: The philosophical view that experience is a primary source of knowledge. Associationism gives empiricism a mechanism for building complex knowledge from experience.

Linked from 12 pages