Assimilation is the mental process where a person adds new information, experiences, and ideas to pre-existing internal frameworks or cognitive schemas. This is a concept in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development where assimilation goes hand in hand with accommodation as a means of adjusting to the environment. For instance, a child who encounters a new breed of dog, and identifies it as a ‘dog’ is associating new information with what they have in their mental ‘files.’ Assimilation also takes place on a wider social and cultural level— when a person takes on a new culture while still retaining some aspects of their old identity. In both cognitive and social structures, assimilation serves the purpose of stabilizing and keeping equilibrium as well as making new information easier to digest. Nevertheless, overreliance on assimilation without accommodation becomes a problem as it leads to stagnated or rigid mental frameworks about the world which in turn leads to stereotyping.
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