associationism the psychological doctrine that association is the sole or primary basis of learning as well as of intelligent thought and behavior. Association occurs when one type of thought, idea, or behavior follows, or is contingent upon, another thought, idea, or behavior or external event, and the second somehow bonds with the first. If the idea of eggs is paired with the idea of ham, then the two ideas may become associated. Associationists argue that complex states of mind and mental processes can be analyzed into associated elements. The complex may be novel, but the elements are products of past associations. Associationism often is combined with hedonism. Hedonism explains why events associate or bond: bonds are forged by pleasant experiences. If the pleasantness of eating eggs is combined with the pleasantness of eating ham, then ideas of ham and eggs associate. Bonding may also be explained by various non-hedonistic principles of association, as in Hume’s theory of the association of ideas. One of these principles is contiguity in place or time. Associationism contributes to the componential analysis of intelligent, rational activity into non-intelligent, non-rational, mechanical processes. People believe as they do, not because of rational connections among beliefs, but because beliefs associatively bond. Thus one may think of London when thinking of England, not because one possesses an inner logic of geographic beliefs from which one infers that London is in England. The two thoughts may co-occur because of contiguity or other principles. Kinds of associationism occur in behaviorist models of classical and operant conditioning. Certain associationist ideas, if not associationism itself, appear in connectionist models of cognition, especially the principle that contiguities breed bonding. Several philosophers and psychologists, including Hume, Hartley, and J. S. Mill among philosophers and E. L. Thorndike (1874–1949) and B. F. Skinner (1904–90) among psychologists, are associationists. See also CONNECTIONISM ; HARTLEY; HEDO- NISM ; HUME ; MILL , . . G.A.G.