👉 The term "associative" is a concept in mathematics and economics that refers to an operation or relation where the result depends on the order of elements within a set. This means that when two or more objects are involved, their relationships can be affected by the order they are placed in. In other words, if you have a group of people who want to meet for dinner, but one person is not available, and you decide to treat everyone else as if they were the only ones on the list