involves the perception and interpretation of new information within the context of existing knowledge and understanding. Accommodation is a more advanced process that involves the restructuring of mental organization in order to include new information.
Assimilation and accommodation, along with equilibration and functional assimilation, are stage independent conceptions in Piaget's cognitive theory of human development (Lerner, 1991, pp. 246 250). Equilibration refers to the balance between the action of an organism on its environment and the action of the environment on the organism. Functional assimilation is the concept that explains why human development continues after equilibration has been attained.
Cognitive theory incorporates some aspects of behavioral theory. An assumption central to cognitive theory is that an individual's emotional and behavioral responses to events in one's life are greatly influenced by one's own interpretations and evaluations of those events. Thus, cognitive therapists are concerned with a subject's (1) interpretation of an event, and (2) her or his basic beliefs used in evaluating the event, "regardless of perceptual accuracy" (Epstein, 1986, p. 69).
Cognitive phenomena are grouped into three categories. The first category, referred to as automatic thoughts, is comprised of an individual's stream of consciousness thought and visual images, which occur as responses to life events. Such automatic thoughts related to events may "be biased by systematic cognitive distortions" (Epstein, 1986, p. 68). The second category is comprised of an individual's expectancies "about the probabilities of . . . responses" to one's own behaviors (Epstein, 1986, p. 68). Such expectancies influence one's behaviors, and such expectancies "are susceptible to systematic" cognitive distortion (Epstein, 1986, p. 68). The third category of cognitive phenomena includes one's "unrealistic and irrational belief...