Sometimes, when providing coaching to customers, they will ask me to explain these two definitions. If I’m being honest, it is a concept I have to look up each and every time. When deciding to make a post about it, since it is such a confusing concept to many, I found this list of examples that may be helpful. I know it was for me. Come back for a practice question related to this topic next week!
For Piaget, the motivation for cognitive development arises from a drive toward cognitive equilibrium (equilibration). Development occurs when a state of disequilibrium brought on by a discrepancy between a person’s current understanding of the world (repertoire of schemas) and reality is resolved through adaptation, which entails two complementary processes – “assimilation” and “accommodation.”
Assimilation is the incorporation of new knowledge into existing cognitive schemas (structures), while Accommodation is the modification of existing schemas to incorporate new knowledge.
When given a toy for the first time, a young child will treat it as he would any new object and will probably bang it, throw it, and taste it. In other words, the child will attempt to understand the toy by assimilating it into his current repertoire of schemas. As the child begins to recognize the toy’s unique properties, he will adjust his existing schemas and, as a result, develop new ways of interacting with the toy; the latter process is referred to as accommodation.
If you go to this site, they have many more examples which I find much more helpful than reading a textbook definition with this concept. Hope this helps!
https://helpfulprofessor.com/examples-of-assimilation-in-psychology/