Within the Systematic Theory of Success there are a number of factors, grouped together there are potential, kinetic, control and physical kinds. This is a definition and explanation of a control factor called positive association.
Positive Association
Positive thinking is often described of as something that can be done in isolation and will give you all the power you need to succeed. However, it is often described as a mixture of many subject areas which cover quite a few factors here. A positive attitude is also described as by having an attitude that promotes optimism and positive thinking which enables you to achieve good results. Positive association described here is a subset of them both, but really focused on the dealing with the conscious and subconscious mind. Positive association deals with how new knowledge or existing knowledge is dealt with. Anything with a negative association has a disruptive effect on the emotions and the immune response of the body and obviously keeping this to a minimum is important. Better still if the negative association can be turned around and made positive, but this ability will be determined by the extent of knowledge someone has.
Existing knowledge may be recalled by the conscious mind or unexpectedly thrown out by the unconscious. If this is negative this gets translated into worry or fear, or any other disabling trains of thought or emotion. If positive, then it reinforces the conscious mind and emotions. New knowledge that comes in may be translated as good or bad by the conscious mind and if positive it again reinforces. New negative information however, if not associated with anything neutral or positive will drain the body of energy and possibly all kinetic factors will be lost. If new information is consciously associated with positive then when it is fed to the unconscious mind the same reinforcement appears and increases all the kinetic factors.
This one controlling factor has power over all the others. The mind fed with constant negative association will immediately affect the energy of the body and mind and could create depression, even physical illness.
The amount of information fed into the unconscious mind too will increase how effective this factor is. Bright visual images that are accompanied by loud sound, touch, smell and taste will impact the mind more powerfully than just reading an article. Very powerful associations are made and retained by using them.
It does make you wonder how such an important factor is not just hard wired to create positive results for survival. I personally think that the brain is not used to modern demands and as such without a tremendous amount of knowledge the environment was successfully negotiated. Anything negative would provide an instant cue not to do it again and was effective in keeping the person out of danger. However, we live in a complex world now and information is not being processed properly and all kinds of psychiatric conditions are appearing that are self-defeating to the poor victims of ill programming.