Associationism

Associationism – the activity of the psyche based on associations (from lat. associatio - connection).

One of the main directions of world psychological thought, explaining the dynamics of mental processes by the principle of Association. Originates from Aristotle. Materialistic associationism became the leading one in the so-called associationist psychology. It prevailed until the beginning of the XX century. and focused mainly on the study of mental activity and cognition. The principle was especially clearly developed in the works of D. Locke, who coined the term "Association".

According to Locke:

• ideas of sensations in the course of development precede ideas of reflection (reflexion - mental activity that concentrates on a certain content of consciousness);
• simple ideas, associating add up to a complex;
• knowledge is based on experience; the sources of experience are sensation and reflection;
• from these sources the mind receives ideas, but innate ideas do not exist: a person is born as a pure wax tablet (tabula rasa), on which you can write anything.

This idea became directly correlated with pedagogical practice, and later - with the problems of personality psychology and pedagogical psychology. It formed the basis of the so-called environmental theories, which assert the leading role of the environment and external influences in the formation of the psyche.

They are opposed by the theories of development that come from the ideas of J.-J. Rousseau and asserting the priority of inherent human patterns of development. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, concepts emerged that separated Association from its corporeal substratum and presented it as an immanent principle of consciousness. The view that formed the basic principles of associationism was established:

• the soul is understood as consciousness, primarily in its cognitive aspect;
• at the heart of the soul's life are simple elements; the psyche, identified with introspectively understood consciousness, is built up of elements - sensations, the simplest feelings;
• these elements – images of sensations - have a sensory character, they are primary, and complex mental formations – representations, thoughts, feelings-are secondary;
• more complex formations arise as the addition of simpler ones based on the principle of Association;
• the condition for the formation of associations is the contiguity of two mental processes;
• the consolidation of associations is due to the vividness of the associated elements and the frequency of repetition of associations in the experience;
• the source of knowledge about the soul is self – observation observing one's own inner world, the researcher is directly drawn to the real soul life and has the right to make judgments about it, while someone else's soul life is inaccessible, although the laws of soul life are assumed to be uniform.

Another important detail: in fact, a person was understood as a loner, living among other such loners; his inner world is explicitly or implicitly opposed to everything else, as if there is a hard border between him and the rest of the world. Thanks to advances in biology and neurophysiology, associationism has been transformed. Helmholtz used the new view of Association in his studies of the senses, Charles Darwin - in explaining emotions, I. M. Sechenov - in the study of brain reflexes.

Spencer introduced the problem of the development of the psyche in phylogeny to associationism and came to an important conclusion about the adaptive function of the psyche in behavior. In the 80's - 90's of the XIX century, numerous studies of the conditions of formation and actualization of associations were undertaken. However, the limitations of their mechanistic interpretation were shown.

Associationism has gone through a number of stages in its development:

• Identification of association as an explanatory principle for individual mental phenomena, primarily the processes of recollection;
• The stage of classical associationism, when integral concepts of the psyche were created, which was understood as a system of mechanical connections (associations) between mental elements, as which sensations and representations were considered;
• The stage of experimental and practical associationism, characterized by an attempt to introduce the subject's activity factor into the basic concept.

Within the framework of associationism, valuable ideas were developed, primarily in the field of psychology of memory and psychology of thinking. The very concept of Association is very valuable. However, Association as a universal explanatory principle has proved insufficient over time, and for associationism as a universal psychological theory, the time has come for a crisis and a fall. Deterministic elements of associationism in a transformed form were perceived by I. P. Pavlov's teaching on conditional reflexes, as well as - on other methodological grounds - by American behaviorism. The study of associations to identify the features of various mental processes is also used by modern psychology.