Associationism. Hypothesis or psychological theory maintained mainly by some English thinkers, especially empiricists, who tried to explain all psychic phenomena by the association of ideas.
Summary
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- 1 Theory
- 2 Historical Background
- 3 Basis for psychological movements
- 4 Sources
Theory
The associationist theory starts from the fact that we relate certain things in memory , in thought, and in all mental life , simply because in our original experience they are linked; And since our first encounters with things take place through the senses, associationists hold that the entire complexity of mental life can be reduced to sensory impressions, that is, to the elemental components of consciousness as linked to consciousness. experience.
The fundamental defect of associationist psychological theories lies precisely in this, in not capturing the sometimes fundamental differences between various psychological facts, practically reducing all of them to simple associations of sensations. The empiricist associationist unknown or poorly explained, for example, the different nature of the ideas or concepts of understanding regarding the sensations or perceptions of the senses, and therefore the essential difference between sensitive and intellectual knowledge; does not interpret well the relationship between sensitive data and images , acquired by the senses, and the ideas or knowledge acquired by intelligence or understanding.
The ideas would become simple impressions or sensible images transformed or associated; some tried similar explanations with feelings and even acts of the will . This sensism , insofar as it tries to establish a certain analogy between the simplest “psychic elements” and the atoms that combine in bodies , was also called ” psychological atomism .” Nevertheless, the associationists contributed to fix the attention in points of the relations between the diverse senses, and to study some phenomena of psychological association.
Historical background
In the middle of the 18th century , associationism constituted for many authors the central nucleus in the interpretation of psychological problems, being defined as a system by D. Hartley ( 1705 – 1757 ).
The difference between his theory and that of his predecessors lies not so much in the principles enunciated as in the clarity with which he captured the need for a completely physiological basis to explain the association (actually only sensory associations). Th . Hobbes ( 1588 – 1679 ) failed to develop his theory accordingly; neither he nor his immediate successors realized the possibility of reaching a more adequate formulation of the different types of association; only in the work of Th. Brown ( 1778 – 1820) faced this question squarely, reducing the problem of mental succession to a considerable number of specific laws of association, taking into account the competition between different experiences. Hobbes took into account the difference between free and uncontrolled association and directed or deliberate thought.
The most important contribution of J. Locke ( 1632 – 1704 ) to psychology resides in that he made explicit the possibilities of a theory of association, which had to start with the data of experience and elaborate the laws that govern the interrelationships and sequences of some experiences with others; the germ of associationism was already evident in the work of Hobbes, which, in turn, has antecedents in Aristotle. Locke’s exposition of the consequences of empiricism and his assertion of the possibility, through analysis, of understanding the origin and organization of ideas, endowed the empirical approach with an attractive and compelling quality that contributed greatly to its strength and strength. influence.
- Berkeley ( 1685 – 1753 ) used the concept of “component sensory qualities” and became one of the founders of the theory of association. Associationism is transformed, in the hands of D. Hume ( 1711 – 1776 ), into a means of dissecting and describing the experience, dispensing with any unifying agent, whether of a physical or mental nature . While associationism splits the mind into sensory particles , I. Kant ( 1724 – 1805 ) insists on the unity of the act of perception, and phrenology (Gall) divides it into functional or feature units. This attacks thevery heart of associationism.
With J. Herbart ( 1776 – 1841 ) we find ourselves before a structuralism combined with a doctrine concerning the laws of association, which is all that is needed to have a new school of associationist psychology , a system in which ideas are active forces . The work of Th. Brown is noteworthy, whose psychological system is a wise and mature development of association theory. Using the term ” suggestion ” rather than “association,” he attempted to give an empirical treatment of the problem of mental connections to a basic principle that he called ” coexistence, ” but this basic principle manifested itself in three forms, dependent on similarity, of the contrastand of proximity in time and space .
He undertook the analysis of the multiple factors that determine the course of the association, stating his famous “secondary laws” of the same, according to which mental life is not a mere concatenation of data from the senses, but what characterizes it is the ability to capture relationships. In his hands , associationism attempted for the first time a specific explanation of the causes by which we think and act in the particular ways imposed on us by particular circumstances, while the interplay of “ideas” was replaced by psychological complexes or ensembles such as if it were individuals in action.
Brown’s work marked the most important moment in the first stage of associationism; His conception of the personality as a unitary entity contributed considerably to giving associationism that maturity and caution that allowed it to achieve its greatest achievements in the work of H. Spencer ( 1820 – 1903 ) and A. Bain ( 1818 – 1903 ). J. Mill (1773-1836) the association reached its complete and rigorous expression and reaction against this end association was evident in the stage of John Stuart Mill ( 1806 – 1873 ) to the work of his father.
Basis for psychological movements
Although the classical line of association theory has been discarded, associationism gave life to many psychological movements; thus, for example, it inspired much of the early work of P. Janet ( 1859 – 1947 ), S. Freud and K. Jung; outlined the first works on conditioned responses; It served as a guide to the painstaking studies of learning by E. Thorndike, H. Ebbinghaus, and others, and grew in strength until it reappeared in a new form, more systematic than ever. The great wave of evolutionism swept the associationists, suppressing them from the landscape of Psychologyfor some time, but as the wave retreated they reappeared. Association theory has gone through a stage of enormous experimental and quantitative refinement and refinement, but the basic structure conceived by early associationists still endures.
