assimilation

Meaning: In Piaget's theory of cognitive development, a schema is a mental framework for organizing knowledge. Assimilation is interpreting a new object or experience through a schema the child already has. A toddler who knows "dog" and calls a cat "dog" is assimilating. When the schema is revised, or a new one is built because the old one fails, that is accommodation. Both serve adaptation. A mismatch between schema and experience (disequilibrium) tends to drive accommodation until equilibrium returns.

Sociology uses the word differently: assimilation is the process by which a minority group takes on the language, customs and values of the dominant culture, often losing distinct features of its own culture.

On the MCAT: Psychology questions describe a child's behavior and ask you to label it. Ask one thing: did the existing category stay the same (assimilation) or change (accommodation)? Passages may also place it within Piaget's stages, such as a sensorimotor infant applying a grasping schema to a new object. In sociology, assimilation is contrasted with multiculturalism (pluralism), segregation and separation in questions about immigrant or minority groups.

Common confusion: Students swap assimilation and accommodation because "taking in new information" sounds like learning. The fact that settles it is that in assimilation the experience is bent to fit the schema, and the schema does not change. In accommodation the schema is what bends. Also keep the two senses apart: Piaget's assimilation is individual and cognitive, while the sociological one is about groups and culture.