Assimilation and accommodation

The accumulation and absorption of new information and knowledge and the rearrangement of one’s scheme of understanding to include the new knowledge. First described by Swiss scientist JEAN PIAGET, the two terms are interdependent. Assimilation is the first step in knowledge acquisition, as new information enters the scheme, or one’s framework of knowledge and understanding. Whenever new data invades, however, the shape of the scheme necessarily changes as it accommodates the new knowledge and reshapes the recipient’s understanding. Thus, a young child’s scheme, or understanding of the sun as it seems to pass overhead, is changed considerably when he or she assimilates new information that the Earth travels about the sun. Piaget called the process of reshaping the scheme through assimilation and accommodation equilibration. While new knowledge is assimilated, the scheme is said to be in disequilibrium, and once accommodation is complete—that is, the moment the subject can say, “I understand!”—the scheme is said to be in equilibrium. The scheme is in disequilibrium far more than in equilibrium, according to Piaget, because all new knowledge generates a need for more knowledge, more assimilation and, therefore, more disequilibrium. This constant reshaping of the scheme, by assimilation and accommodation, necessarily keeps it in a state of continual imbalance, or disequilibrium. (See also cognitive style.)