Equilibration

Developmental theorists make a distinction between developmental states and developmental mechanisms. Developmental states are chronologically arranged snapshots of children's skill levels at particular points in time. An example of a sequence of developmental states would be the four stages of cognitive development that were proposed by Jean Piaget in his classic theory (i.e., sensori-motor, preoperations, concrete operations, formal operations). As children enter a new stage, they acquire a new set of skills and move to a new level of performance. Developmental mechanisms, in contrast, are the factors that are used to explain children's progression through developmental states (i.e., why a child progresses from one state to another in a sequence). The primary developmental mechanism in Piaget's theory is called equilibration. Equilibration pertains to restoring the balance between two competing tendencies in the mind: assimilation and accommodation. Piaget used the notion of assimilation to describe the process of incorporating experiences and information into existing knowledge structures in the mind. Metaphorically, children find a ‘home’ for this information in their existing knowledge structures. To say that a child has assimilated an idea or experience is to say that he or she understood the idea or experience. Piaget thought that mental assimilation was analogous to the biological assimilation that takes place when the human body extracts what it needs from food and incorporates the extracted nutrients into existing organs and tissues.

Sometimes an idea is so discrepant from what a child believes or knows that it cannot be assimilated. Piaget used the notion of accommodation to describe the process of changing the existing configuration of knowledge in the mind in order that the troublesome idea can be assimilated. In most cases, assimilation is always partial in the sense that children only assimilate that portion of an experience that is consistent with their current understanding. And unless an experience or idea is identical to previous ones, every act of assimilation usually precipitates accommodation of knowledge as well. For example, when a child encounters a new species of dog for the first time and is told that it is a dog, this information finds a home in the existing network of ideas (i.e., it is assimilated), but the network is also changed as the child's mind creates a new representation corresponding to the new subtype of dog (i.e., there is accommodation).

In his book, Play, Dreams, and Imitation, Piaget argued that ‘imitation is a continuation of accommodation, play is a continuation of assimilation, and intelligence is a harmonious combination of the two’ (p. 104). This quote suggests that when one assimilates, one inserts one's own ideas into reality; when [Page 351]one accommodates, one's schemes and ideas come into closer conformity with reality and tend to be fairly direct copies of it. Play and fantasy, moreover, are examples of over as similation (i.e., putting too much of one's ideas into reality). In contrast, children engage in over accommodation when they try to directly copy the actions of someone (without putting their own ‘spin’ on the actions).

To illustrate assimilation and accommodation further, consider the following example. Young pre-schoolers who are passengers in their parents' cars often think that the moon is following them when they drive at night. The physics of the explanation of what is actually happening is too abstract for young children to comprehend, so they could not assimilate even this explanation if it were provided. Ultimately, however, their knowledge of the physical world will change enough that they may eventually understand the explanation as young adults.

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