Question

'Associations of ideas' are driven by an operation of the mind that we have no control over. In other words, associations of ideas are 'involuntary'.

Answer 1

Association of ideas are operations conducted inside the brain by which representations arise in consciousness. It is believed that one thought is followed by another in consciousness as they were associated by some principle. The tendency to identify the association of ideas with the school of associationist psychology which flourished in the late nineteenth century has helped to obscure the fact that the principle in its most general form has played the central role in attempts to apply the methods and assumptions of science to the study of man. The complex aspects of ideas and mental phenomena arise due to sensations which person feels and these depends on principles of associations which are similarity, contiguity and contrast. On day to day basis we observe and see different people and then association between ideas established.

According Sigmund Freud ideas could be connected through their emotional significance. Hence one idea, which is accompanied by a certain emotion, might be followed by another, Accompanied by the same emotion. In (1890), psychologist William James shifted emphasis away from an association of ideas to an association of central nervous processes caused by overlapping or immediately successive stimuli. But still concept of association is very much effective and important in psychology.