Accommodation and assimilation are the key terms, including in the theory of cognitive development, elaborated by Jean Piaget, to reflect the patterns of human progress. The former concept is critical for describing the way people learn by interacting with the world, and it means the process of forming frameworks based on one’s new experiences or knowledge (Nickerson, 2021). In turn, the latter notion relates to the assessment of all presented information, and it implies the application of critical thinking for comparing old and new models of one’s behavior to find what is credible (Nickerson, 2021). These two terms effectively coexist throughout human lives while for successful cooperation with peers, they should be balanced to avoid contradictions between varying perspectives.
One of the most apparent examples of accommodation and assimilation as per Piaget’s theory is the tendency of teenagers to follow their peers in criminal activity. In one’s childhood, parents initially explain to their offspring that any sort of offense is an action intended for deliberately bringing harm to property or other people and state that it is inevitably punished. Nevertheless, the encounter with the real world shatters this idea as a person sees someone shoplifting while avoiding punishment by running from the security officers in a supermarket. From this moment on, the conflict emerges, and it can be resolved either by sticking to the old schemes or developing new exceptions to the framework, provided by parents earlier. In this way, the subsequent conduct of this individual will depend on which model prevails, and their personalities will be readjusted accordingly. This scenario shows how accommodation and assimilation contradict each other and what outcomes these events might have.
Reference
Nickerson, C. (2021). Accommodation and assimilation in psychology. Simply Psychology. Web.