The article presents a brief history of the emergence of psycholinguistics as a new branch of knowledge in American, European, Russian and Kazakh science; describes the origins and content of Kazakh psycholinguistics of its Soviet and modern period; gives a summary of the ideas and main research vectors of the Moscow psycholinguistic school of A.A. Leontiev and Tver psycholinguistic school of A.A. Zalevskaya; identifies heuristic value and prognostic the potential of psycholinguistic research in the field of associative lexicography in international databases and, including, the Kazakh corpus of associative dictionaries; the theoretical developments and practical results obtained within the framework of various scientific directions of dissertation research and project activities of recent decades are described in a concise form; associative methods of studying the linguistic consciousness of an ethnic group by structuring its core and periphery are briefly outlined; the problems of analyzing the content of universal/basic values of Kazakh society on the empirical material of associative experiments and dictionaries of associative norms created on their basis are discussed; in conclusion, the tasks and possible prospects of psycholinguistic associative research in Kazakhstan are outlined.