Assimilation

Definition: Assimilation refers to a process by which something becomes more and more similar to something else until it becomes totally absorbed and loses its own identity. In psychology, the term Assimilation is used in two contexts. First, in the context of cultural assimilation, in which someone from one culture assimilates into another so that they can no longer be told apart from the new culture. Assimilation is also a process described by the famous psychologist Jean Piaget who identified two cognitive processes (Assimilation and Accommodation) at work in the normal learning process of children. According to Piaget, when a child becomes aware of something new that it has never seen before it has two choices for making sense out of that thing. It can interpret that thing in terms of what it already knows (Assimilation), or it can learn a new way for making sense of that thing (Accommodation). Taken together, these two processes make up adaptation, or the child's ability to adapt to his or her environment.