Emotions play an undeniable role in our decision-making, and you're right, it can ultimately be traced back to associations between our emotions and experiences. And it makes sense when you think about how often we feel different emotions throughout the day and recognize our surroundings at the time, building up a collection of associations to different people, objects, and places. And the most interesting part, especially for marketers, is that those associations seem to consistently act as a decision-making shortcut, while we use them to recreate certain emotions. 

I recently wrote an article about the effect of associations on emotional branding, backed by research from Antonio Damasio and others. You might find it interesting.

http://thenovelera.com/14/the-unseen-world-of-emotional-branding-2/