Influence-from-Mere-Association Tendency often has a shocking effect that helps

swamp the normal tendency to return favor for favor. Sometimes, when one

receives a favor, his condition is unpleasant, due to poverty, sickness,

subjugation, or something else. In addition, the favor may trigger an

envy-driven dislike for the person who was in so favorable a state that he could

easily be a favor giver. Under such circumstances, the favor receiver, prompted

partly by mere association of the favor giver with past pain, will not only

dislike the man who helped him but also try to injure him. This accounts for a

famous response, sometimes dubiously attributed to Henry Ford: “Why does that

man hate me so? I never did anything for him.” I have a friend, whom I will now

call “Glotz,” who had an amusing experience in favor-giving. Glotz owned an

apartment building that he had bought because he wanted, eventually, to use the

land in different development. Pending this outcome, Glotz was very lenient in

collecting below-market rents from tenants. When, at last, there was a public

hearing on Glotz’s proposal to tear down the building, one tenant who was far

behind in his rent payments was particularly angry and hostile. He came to the

public hearing and said, “This proposal is outrageous. Glotz doesn’t need any

more money. I know this because I was supported in college by Glotz

fellowships.”

 

A final serious clump of bad thinking caused by mere association lies in the

common use of classification stereotypes. Because Pete knows that Joe is ninety

years old and that most ninety-year-old persons don’t think very well, Pete

appraises old Joe as a thinking klutz even if old Joe still thinks very well.

Or, because Jane is a white-haired woman, and Pete knows no old women good at