- [Voiceover] According
to Piaget, all of us, even very young children,
are constantly trying to make sense of the world around us. And in order to do this, we
build schemas or mental models. And we use these schemas as frameworks by which we organize and
interpret new information. So for Piaget, cognitive development was all about the development of schemas. But obviously, in order
for them to develop, they need to be able to grow and change. And Piaget said that this happened through the process of
assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation describes how
we interpret new experiences in terms of our current understanding, so in terms of our current schemas. Accommodation describes how
we later adjust our schemas to better incorporate new experiences. I like to think of schemas as cubbyholes, like places where you stored things when you were in preschool. But I also sometimes picture them as those toys people had
when they were younger. And the toy that I'm
thinking of are these boxes. And each side of that box has a hole. And those holes can only
fit specific shapes. So if this toy is our schema, I want you to picture the objects that could potentially fit into it as new information in our environment. And as we encounter these new
things in our environment, we try to assimilate that information. And we do this by placing
this new information in our previously constructed schemas. And as long as it fits, as long as it's consistent
with what we already know, then we don't have a problem. But what happens when
we run into something that doesn't exactly fit? In that case we're forced to
modify our existing schemas. So maybe we'll add a
star-shaped hole to our box. But that might not be possible. And maybe we have to
construct a brand new schema in order to take this
information into account. And this is what we refer
to as accommodation. So we can accommodate either by adjusting previously existing schemas
or by creating new ones. So imagine we have a child
who has a schema about dog where dog is defined as a
furry, four-legged animal. Now, imagine that that child sees a cat or maybe a raccoon for the first time. That child is going to try to
assimilate that new creature into categories that
he or she already has. So maybe the child will proclaim "Doggie!" at which point his parents
would probably tell him that, "No, no, that is not a dog. "In fact, that's a raccoon,
and we don't pet those." And so in order to really understand what this new creature is,
the child has to accommodate. They have to think, okay, well, now I know that not all furry,
four-legged animals are dogs. Some are raccoons. And they are not always friendly. I think it's easy to mix up
assimilation and accommodation because they're so similar to one another. And so I think the best way to distinguish between assimilation and accommodation is to keep an example in your head. But if you're struggling with that, another way to distinguish between them might be to look at the differences between these two words. Assimilation has two Ss in it. So I think of that as
standing for same schema or incorporation information into a schema that you already have. Accommodation has two Cs which you can think of as
standing for change and create or cases where you have to
change an existing schema or create a new one. Another way to think about this material is in terms of equilibrium
and disequilibrium. As we move around in the world, we are typically exposed to
a lot of new information. And we can deal with most
of that new information with assimilation alone. And by assimilating that new
information into our schemas as we interact with the world, we are kept in a state of equilibrium. But when we encounter something that doesn't fit with our current schemas, this puts us in a state of disequilibrium, which is an unpleasant state to be in because it's frustrating. So we then use accommodation as a means of dealing
with this frustration. And by accommodating this
information we restore balance, so we return to equilibrium. So imagine that you're a child and the only dogs you have
ever seen are Huskies. And one day you come
across a Golden Retriever. And this is new information, so you're gonna strive to understand it. And you do this through assimilation. You proclaim it a dog, and you return to a state of equilibrium. And then maybe later on you
come across a Chihuahua. And you think, okay, well, this one looks a little bit different. But it still has many of the features that I have come to use to define dog. And so, hey, this one is also a dog. So you assimilate this information. You return to equilibrium. And then maybe later you come
across yet another creature. And first you try to
assimilate this information. It has four legs, it has ears. It has two eyes, it has a tail. It's a dog. But then maybe you notice
that other people around you aren't treating this creature like a dog. It's not acting like the other
dogs that you see in a park. And so you start to wonder. Maybe this isn't a dog. And now you're in a
state of disequilibrium. And so at this point
maybe you ask your parents and they inform you that,
nope, this is not a dog. This is, in fact, a squirrel. And so now you have a concept where you didn't have one before. Now you have this notion of squirrel. Now you have a new schema. And because you have a place
to put this new information, you are now returned to
a state of equilibrium. So the idea here is that
development moves along in an state of equilibrium
as we assimilate new information that we come across. But every once in a while
we run into something that throws part of our
world view into disarray. And this disequilibrium is what
drives our learning process because we accommodate as a
way to restore equilibrium.