A water-soluble micro-crosslinked associating polymer (PASA-PL): poly (acrylamide/butyl styrene/sodium 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulphonate) (PASA)-phenolic aldehyde (PL) was prepared to reduce the critical associated concentration and enhance the thickening properties for the linear PASA polymer in aqueous and brine solutions. The consecutive steady shear and viscoelastic properties were investigated to explore the correlations between the rheologic performance and supramolecular structures for the PASA-PL brine solutions. Upon consecutive steady shear, the intermolecular hydrophobic association is greatly reinforced because of the expansion of the coiled PASA-PL chains at the suitable shear rate, and the brine solution exhibits obvious shear thickening behavior. The steady shear results show that the intermolecular hydrophobic association is reversible, and that the polymer chains do not degrade upon shearing. The PASA-PL brine solutions with 50 g L(-1) NaCl have predominantly elastic character over the angular frequency range at the polymer concentration higher than 1.0 g L(-1), which is remarkably strengthened with a slight increase in polymer concentration. The PASA-PL brine solutions display a salt-thickening effect and predominantly exhibit elastic character over the angular frequency range at 10-50 g L(-1) NaCl. These results demonstrate that the viscoelastic behavior of the PASA-PL solutions mainly depends on the formation of hydrophobically associated structures via the intermolecular association strengthened by the micro-crosslink of PASA with PL. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 120: 666-675, 2011