Accommodation (learning psychology)

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Accommodation (French for "adaptation") means in learning psychology the adaptation of the inner world by creating a new perception scheme. If a certain perception can no longer be classified into the existing schemes ( assimilation ), the individual modifies existing schemes or creates new ones, i.e. adapts his inner being to the changing outside world.

According to Jean Piaget, accommodation is one of two types of cognitive adaptation and is used to establish a state of equilibrium ( equilibration ). The counterpart to accommodation is assimilation (French for “adjustment”), which in learning psychology describes the assignment of a perception to an existing perception scheme.

example

A toddler has a WauWau scheme , which means that it can recognize dogs - regardless of color, shape and size. One day it sees a cow and says woof . The mother shakes her head and doesn't laugh as she usually does when the child has recognized a bowel . She says Muhmuh . This process is repeated several times and finally the child the difference between Bark and muhmuh learned. It has adapted its cognitive structure to the external world ("accommodated").

Another example, here for the gripping scheme, is the foam in the bathtub, which a child initially tries to grasp as an object. But when the foam keeps trickling through your fingers, the child develops a new scheme, a scoop scheme.

Accommodation and Assimilation

Accommodation is the opposite of assimilation. Assimilation and accommodation are processes that seamlessly merge into one another. Every experience stimulates both assimilation and accommodation; both are important for human cognitive development. If a person were to assimilate exclusively, he would have very few, but very large, schemes and would have considerable difficulty in making distinctions between similar objects. If humans were only to accommodate, they would not be able to react to objects in common.

Revenstorf applies the assimilation-accommodation model to the way psychotherapy works: when assimilation no longer works, i.e. when experiences fit into the previous worldview, the psychotherapist helps with the necessary accommodation. In this process, the systemic therapy perspective can be applied to social processes in the sense of a socially necessary paradigm shift at certain times .

literature

  • Torsten Steinhoff: Scientific text competence : use of language and writing development in scientific texts by students and experts . Niemeyer, 2007, ISBN 978-3-484-31280-7 , pp. 135 ff .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jutta Kienbaum, Bettina Schuhrke: Developmental Psychology of the Child From Birth to the Age of 12. Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2010, pp. 150–151.