the philosophical belief that mental phenomena, such as learning, remembering, and imagining, can be explained in terms of the laws of association.
(psychology) a theory that association is the basic principle of mental activity
a theory of knowledge propounded by thinkers such as Condillac in France and James Mill in England which holds that nearly all thought processes are governed by association (e.g., cause and effect, resemblance and difference, contiguity). Associationism has influenced the modern theory of conditioning and learning; it is opposed by those who believe the mind can freely create arbitrary images.
In the philosophy of mind, associationism began as a theory about how ideas combine in the mind. John Locke suggested that each of us was born with a tabula rasa (without any innate capabilities) and learned to form representations as a result of experiences, rather than of reason. "Experimental psychology", as David Hume (1711-1776) called it, was concerned with studying the mind as a mirror of representations of nature, constantly trying to make sense of the world.