ASSOCIATIONISM

MAIN CONCEPTS, SUBJECT MATTER,

PIONEERS AND CRITICISM
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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
• It was never a formal school of Psychology like Structuralism or Functionalism.
• In fact, it existed as a principle which formed the basis of conducting researches
and making explanation by several psychologists independently.
• A critical look at the research conducted in the laboratory of Wundt would bring to
light that many laws of association were used to explain the results.
• Does it mean laws of association existed prior to Wundt? A sizeable portion of the
experts believe that ASSOCIATIONISM existed before Wundt’s Psychology made
its appearance.
• ASSOCIATIONISM as a movement can be divided in two parts…
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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Modern
Older
Associationism
Associationism
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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
• Aristotle
• Plato

• Later Philosophers did not pay much heed to what Aristotle and
Plato said.
• It was the British Empiricists who took up the matter seriously.
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Exponents of
Modern Associationism

• Hermann Ebbinghaus
• Ivan P. Pavlov
• [Link]
• Edward Lee Thorndike
• E.R. Guthrie
• William K. Estes
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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
• Today what we call older associationism was developed by DAVID HARTLEY.
• His effort made ASSOCIATIONISM a formal doctrine.
• He postulated only one principle or law of association i.e. law of contiguity.
• John Stuart Mill considered contiguity and similarity as laws of association.
• Alexander Bain also advocated for these two principles.
• Herbert Spencer’s Associationism has a Darwinian flavour.
• These principles were applied by experimental psychologists in various fields like
learning, memory etc. These psychologists became MODERN
ASSOCIATIONISTS.
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MODERN ASSOCIATIONISM:
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MODERN ASSOCIATIONISM:
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MODERN ASSOCIATIONISM:
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MODERN ASSOCIATIONISM:
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MODERN ASSOCIATIONISM:
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MODERN ASSOCIATIONISM:
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MODERN ASSOCIATIONISM:
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HERMANN EBBINGHAUS:
• Intrigued by Fechner’s book, Element, Ebbinghaus got drawn towards Psychology.
• In England, he extensively studied the work of British Associationists. In 1885 he
published the famous book, On Memory which has been considered as the first
systematic laboratory investigation of memory.
• His chief innovations are these:
a) Accuracy of observation by variations of several repeated observations about a
mean.
b) Elimination of the qualitative error by controlling the impact of meaning
(association) by inventing NONSENSE SYLLABLES.
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HERMANN EBBINGHAUS:
• His experiments opened doors for fascinating results.
• He did experiments on learning and memory as well as on Forgetting from where
we get the ‘Forgetting Curve’ which shows the forgetting during the first hours
after learning is very fast and then it became slow.
• He came to know about the ‘saving method’, ‘effect of practice’ on memory.
Overall, he took the principles of association to the laboratory set-up and tested it.
That’s where he still shines.
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IVAN P. PAVLOV:
• Obtained a degree in Animal Physiology in 1875 at the University of St.
Petersburg and a medical degree in 1883.
• In Leipzig University, he came into contact with Wundt. But he came back to St.
Petersburg in 1890. In 1904, he won NOBEL PRIZE for his work on glandular
and neural work on digestion.
• CLASSICAL CONDITIONING: Stimuli associated with food, like dish, sound
of the metronome, the person who brought the food all elicited the Salivation
response in Dogs. Why?
• Pavlov gave a physiological explanation of this Psychological phenomenon. He
pointed at the S-R relationship, named it Irradiation.
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VLADIMIR BEKHTEREV:
• A rival of Pavlov, Bekhterev was a physiologist who shifted ASSOCIATIONISM
from ideas to overt responses. Attention on conditioning of motor responses of
men as well as animal beings. In fact, he was interested in establishing human
reflexology.
• Important work: conditioning a neutral stimulus like sound of a bell with a shock
to elicit withdrawal reaction in dogs. In principle, he agreed with Pavlov, but did
not reject the Psychology part outright.
E.L. THORNDIKE:
• 1898, He built his theory of learning based on Principle of Associationism.
• This theory was named as The law of effect theory of learning.
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DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY: For,
Thorndike, Psychology was the study of S-R
connections or bonds held together by
association. But, one must remember,
• Thorndike was not a conscious systematist
• Therefore he can be considered as a
functionalist as well as an associationist.
• Thorndike gave a broad meaning to the
word ‘connection.’ What is it?
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DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY:
• Connection may originate from parts or
elements of the situation or from the
situation as a whole.
• It may also be determined by the attitude of
the person or by immediately preceding
stimuli.
• They may lead to responses like readiness,
attention, awareness and so on.
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POSTULATES: MIND-BODY PROBLEM:
• Thorndike’s postulates • No formal position was
were also implicit. taken by Thorndike as he
• All behaviour could be considered it to be a
analysed in terms of S-R purely philosophical issue.
connections.
• All behavioural processes
are quantifiable
• The S and R are held
together by association.
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PRINCIPLES OF CONNECTION :
• It is nothing but principles of learning.
• He changed these principles substantially in his later writings.
• His early experiments were conducted on hungry cats placed
in a puzzle box. The type of the puzzle box differed across
experimental situation.
• He noticed that at first, the cat was erratic in terms of the time
taken to come out of the boxes to get the food.
• But with practice, the latency period was minimized.
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PRINCIPLES OF CONNECTION :
• Thorndike explained, in the puzzle box the cat exhibited so
many responses like clawing, biting, jumping until the right
response was done.
• Gradually, the right response was established and wrong
response was eliminated.
• For Thorndike, learning tended to be blind than insightful.
Hence it is called trial-and-error learning or learning by
selecting and connecting.
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THREE LAWS:
• LAW OF READINESS.
• LAW OF EXERCISE (strengthening the S-
R connection with practice)
• LAW OF EFFECT (Response producing
satisfying consequence is ‘stamped in’ and
vice versa)
*sub-laws are there
*Thorndike himself changed some of his laws.
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THREE LAWS:
• In 1930, law of exercise was practically
renounced. He said, mere blind practice
won’t fetch the result. Certain other factors
like, knowledge of the result, would
improve the performance.
• In 1933, he also discovered a phenomenon
called spread of effect.
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NATURE OF DATA: PRINCIPLE OF
• Objective and quantifiable SELECTION:
• Experimental method • S-R associations also
account for selection of
behaviour apart of
acquisition of behaviour.
• A person behaves in a way
that he has inherent power
to attend to that particular
situation.
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CRITICISM:
• Trial and error learning: Kohler and other Gestaltists believe
that learning does not happen by trial and error, but by insight.
He believed the animals were not stupid, but were made to
behave in a stupid manner.
• Law of Exercise: revision after criticism
• Law of Effect: Behaviourists criticized mentalistic and
subjective concepts of ‘satisfaction’ or ‘annoyance.’
• Elementalism: Transfer of learning; the more common
elements, the greater the transfer. Narrowness in approach.
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REFERENCE:

THE COMPREHENESIVE HISTORY OF

PSYCHOLOGY, A.K. SINGH

HISTORY AND SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY,

RACHANA SHARMA & RAMNATH SHARMA