The significance of responses in the free association test

Abstract

The author examined the words written by 50 students in response to the words of the Kent-Rosanoff list, and checked every response which was not simply and easily explained as the product of connections formed by frequency and fitness (1) in hearing and reading, (2) in speaking and writing, or (3) in the customary experiences of people in general. Upon analysis of his findings he concludes that "a test in which a subject is asked to say or write the first word he thinks of, or the first thing he thinks of, in response to a stimulus word is then usually not a test of what ideas and feelings the individual is accustomed to associate with the facts named by the stimulus word… [but] the associations run more directly from the stimulus word itself." (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)