Simple Query Chooses Clustered Index Scan Instead Of Clustered Index Seek

the query:

SELECT a.AssetGuid, a.Name, a.LocationGuid
FROM Asset a WHERE a.AssociationGuid IN (
SELECT ada.DataAssociationGuid FROM AssociationDataAssociation ada
WHERE ada.AssociationGuid = '568B40AD-5133-4237-9F3C-F8EA9D472662')

takes 30-60 seconds to run on my machine, due to a clustered index scan on our an index on asset [about half a million rows].  For this particular association less than 50 rows are returned. 

expanding the inner select into a list of guids the query runs instantly:

SELECT a.AssetGuid, a.Name, a.LocationGuid
FROM Asset a WHERE a.AssociationGuid IN (
'0F9C1654-9FAC-45FC-9997-5EBDAD21A4B4',
'52C616C0-C4C5-45F4-B691-7FA83462CA34',
'C95A6669-D6D1-460A-BC2F-C0F6756A234D')

It runs instantly because of doing a clustered index seek [on the same index as the previous query] instead of a scan.  The index in question IX_Asset_AssociationGuid is a nonclustered index on Asset.AssociationGuid.

The tables involved:

Asset, represents an asset.  Primary key is AssetGuid, there is an index/FK on Asset.AssociationGuid.  The asset table has 28 columns or so...
Association, kind of like a place, associations exist in a tree where one association can contain any number of child associations.  Each association has a ParentAssociationGuid pointing to its parent.  Only leaf associations contain assets. 
AssociationDataAssociation, a table consisting of two columns, AssociationGuid, DataAssociationGuid.  This is a table used to quickly find leaf associations [DataAssociationGuid] beneath a particular association [AssociationGuid].  In the above case the inner select () returns 3 rows. 

I'd include .sqlplan files or screenshots, but I don't see a way to attach them. 

I understand I can specify to use the index manually [and this also runs instantly], but for such a simple query it is peculiar it is necesscary.  This is the query with the index specified manually:

SELECT a.AssetGuid, a.Name, a.LocationGuid
FROM Asset a WITH (INDEX (IX_Asset_AssociationGuid)) WHERE
a.AssociationGuid IN (
SELECT ada.DataAssociationGuid FROM AssociationDataAssociation ada
WHERE ada.AssociationGuid = '568B40AD-5133-4237-9F3C-F8EA9D472662')

To repeat/clarify my question, why might this not be doing a clustered index seek with the first query?