 influence from mere association. Now we already know that habits are based off rewards. You buy a particular shampoo because you like the way it makes your hair feel or the effects it has on your hair. You buy a particular type of car tire because you like the way it drives on your car. You sit in a particular position during lunchtime because you like the way that position feels. We do things based off rewards. If you have read the book The Power of Habit you understand about the habit cycle but that's for another discussion. Now influence from mere association is pretty much how we can be influenced by previous events or our previous understandings of certain things, our interpretations. What we associate with the event is how we're going to react to it. Think of Coca-Cola ads. When they make the advertisements they make sure that the scene is almost surreal. It's happier than real life. Everyone's happy. It's sunny. It's really optimistic. You will never see a coke ad whether we're talking about the death of someone or a grim event that's happened. It just doesn't happen because the association for Coca-Cola is happiness and joy and they're trying to trigger that part of our brain that associates things and influences us when they make these advertisements. Now the problem with this influence for me association is that we can get tricked from it. We can start to think that because a certain thing was the way it was before it's going to be like that in the present moment. That's why you can get someone going to the same casino going to the same machine and using that machine for years not end. What generally happens is at some point that person will want some money on that machine, that particular machine. Now this person get influenced by that event and from here on out they will be going to the same machine thinking that the same results will happen again. They will keep gambling thinking that perhaps they'll get lucky again because they got lucky previously. Now to avoid getting tricked by this logic is you need to really critically analyze your past successes and try to decipher if the success was due to you, like probability or certain circumstances in the environment. You need to get some clarity in that respect and then you need to look at the current situation and try and decipher if things are different, if different outcomes are there that were not there beforehand. Now this influence for me association also caused a lot of trouble for messengers back in the day back during the Persian Empire. Messengers that brought back bad news will generally get killed because the person receiving the news will be associate the messenger with the bad news. It's not logical or rational but this is just the way that the brain works and they will take out the problems on that person. Think of when you have been angry previously. If someone is around you, generally you might have taken out your anger on them. Everything little thing they would have done would have infuriated you and also caused your anger. You associated them with some other influence that made you angry. The problem with this influence from me association tendency is that it is what is the creator of stereotypes. If you have seen someone who gave a particular type of way previously, let's say perhaps a Mexican or a black person or Asian person or a white person, it is the stereotyping that forces you to start putting that image on other people that might be Mexican, black or Asian. You might wrongly assume that they're going to behave the same way that the first person you met behaved. Now this obviously can cause great troubles as it blinds you to the reality of the world if you're basing everything on stereotypes. As we are always talking about the world as dynamic, it's not static. There are many influences and many things happening. You cannot predict things based on prior events. Things are always changing. So you need to really look out for this influence from me or association. Peace.