In relation to psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 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.

Verbal behavior

Behaviorists will often use paired association tests to determine the strength of verbal behavior, in particular, B.F Skinner's concept of the verbal response class called intraverbals.