Equilibration
Equilibration , also aequilibration or equilibration (from Latin aequilibrium "balance") is a concept developed by Jean Piaget in developmental psychology that tries to explain the development of the ability to perform complex cognitive performance. The concept states that understanding matures through organization (coordination), adaptability , assimilation and accommodation .
The equilibration process
Equilibration is the driving force behind cognitive development and means the adaptation of the human organism to its environmental conditions. This process serves to develop ever higher and more adequate states of equilibrium (development of new cognitive structures). The spontaneous activity of the individual is required for this process, since the individual has to create stimuli for himself in order to arouse his curiosity. It is also brought about by the self-regulated or self-motivated confrontation between the individual on the one hand and the environment on the other. Learning and maturing are included in this process.
Features of this learning process are differentiation and abstraction (generalization learning). The appearance of imbalances also means the construction of new cognitive structures. Disturbances in equilibration are caused by environmental events, i.e. when attempts at assimilation fail or different assimilation schemes contradict one another. The self-regulatory activity of the individual is responsible for balancing out the discrepancies. The equilibration serves the organization of knowledge and knowledge , i.e. the modification and differentiation of the cognitive structures in the direction of more coherence and more flexible applicability. This is ultimately the goal of development. Because assimilation (structure maintenance) and environmental adaptation (accommodation) are equilibrated, the organism finally adapts to its environmental conditions.
Disturbances in the equilibration process (de-equilibrium)
The disturbances in the equilibration process cause a learning situation to arise. An imbalance only occurs when an attempt to assimilate has failed. Only through the disturbance of the equilibration can the imbalance be balanced (equilibration process).
The course of the equilibration process
The process is as follows: The child tries to assimilate the new (unknown) environmental experience, in other words to grasp it with existing thought structures. If this assimilation process fails , internal imbalances arise ( cognitive dissonance / de-equilibrium) and the child experiences an internal contradiction. As a result, the self-regulated or self-motivated activity of the child sets in and this internal imbalance is balanced out by the accommodation process. The resulting new schemes and structures equilibrate the imbalance and solve the problem. There is now dynamic equilibrium again.
The concept of equilibration, originally derived from biology , was adopted by developmental psychologist Jean Piaget in psychology and its meaning expanded; for Piaget, equilibration is a directed process that strives to achieve a state of equilibrium . Learning is subordinate to maturation on the one hand and equilibration on the other.
literature
- Jean Piaget : The Equilibration of Cognitive Structures . Stuttgart 1976. ISBN 3-12-926530-9
- HM Trautner: Textbook of Developmental Psychology . 2 volumes. Göttingen 1991
Individual evidence
- ^ Equilibration in the Lexicon of Psychology , Spektrum-Verlag.