In relation to psychology to pair by association is the action of associating a stimulus with an arbitrary idea or object, to elicit a response, usually emotional. This is done by repeatedly pairing the stimulus with the arbitrary object.
For example, repeatedly pairing images of beautiful women in bathing suits, elicits a sexual response in most men. Advertising agencies, for example, repeatedly pair products with attractive women in television commercials. This is with the intention of eliciting an emotional or sexually aroused response in the consumer.
This causes the consumer to be more likely to buy the product than when presented with a similar but competing product without such an association.
Read more about Pair By Association: Verbal Behavior, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words pair by, pair and/or association:
“Auld Noah was at hame wi’ them a’,
The lion and the lamb,
Pair by pair they entered the Ark
And he took them as they cam’.”
—Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)
“The majority of persons choose their wives with as little prudence as they eat. They see a trull with nothing else to recommend her but a pair of thighs and choice hunkers, and so smart to void their seed that they marry her at once. They imagine they can live in marvelous contentment with handsome feet and ambrosial buttocks. Most men are accredited fools shortly after they leave the womb.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)
“The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”
—Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)