associationism

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Related to Associationist psychology: Association of Ideas

as·so·ci·a·tion·ism

(ă-sō'sē-ā'shŭn-izm),
In psychology, the theory that human understanding of the world occurs through ideas associated with sensory experience rather than through innate ideas.
Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary © Farlex 2012

associationism

(ə-sō′sē-ā′shə-nĭz′əm, ə-sō′shē-)
n.
The psychological theory that association is the basic principle of all mental activity.
as·so′ci·a′tion·ist adj. & n.
as·so′ci·a′tion·is′tic adj.
The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2007, 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
The point is that a great many of the standards required by outside agencies or testing programs need not -- and should not -- be taught on the basis of an associationist psychology wedded to a pedagogy of poverty, although admittedly this entails tradeoffs and some necessary compromising with respect to constructivist teaching for depth of understanding.
STANDARDS, TESTING, AND URBAN SCHOOLS -- Implementing High Standards in Urban Schools: Problems and Solutions
The great critical champion of |the common voice of the multitude', however, neither followed |Longinus' nor subscribed to a rigorous associationism; Dr Johnson invested the reader with an importance based on A uniformitarianism older than associationist psychology. As W.
Francis Jeffrey's associationist aesthetics
"The individualists had not," the author shows, "abandoned the belief in progress characteristic of earlier liberals, but contrary to the views of the latter, they believed that it was to be achieved by a |natural' process rather by means of conscious human intervention." In subsequent chapters the author shows how the theory of evolutionary associationism, held by the Individualists, represented a big change from associationist psychology; how sociology in the hands of the Individualists changed from a tool for social engineering to a means for showing that such attempts to bring on desirable change were bound to fail; how the Individualists' theory of history "enabled them to present institutional conservatism as the truly progressive creed".
Men versus the State: Herbert Spencer and Late Victorian Individualism
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