Accommodation is a process that consists of adjusting something to a mode or measure to adapt it or make it possible to use it in an efficient, bearable, pleasant or pleasant way. Examples: “the arrangement of the furniture in this office tends to make it more welcoming and functional” or “I feel that my accommodation in the new routine will be slow and it will cost me a lot of effort”.
Accommodation is the process by which the environment creates transformations in the living being, or is transformed by the influence of the environment. The meaning of accommodation in Psychology is, in short, a process of adaptation to the multiple and varied demands that the world imposes on the subject.
In the field of psychology, accommodation is called a mechanism that allows an individual to change their cognitive structures to incorporate new knowledge. This process, detailed by Jean Piaget, can involve both the change of an existing scheme and the development of a different scheme that allows the incorporation of the new stimulus.
Jean Piaget was an acclaimed psychologist originally from Switzerland, who rose to prominence thanks to his studies on intelligence, cognitive development and childhood. His observations and conclusions are of great importance for the current training of future psychologists, and also for research. With regard to accommodation, which can also appear under the name of adjustment, it is one of the two fundamental processes of human learning, along with that of assimilation.
The idea of accommodation, on the other hand, appears in the field of the sense of sight. Accommodation is called what the lens does when it increases its refractive power to focus on objects located at close range. The relaxed eye is ready to focus on what is at a great distance. Through the housing, the lens adapts to increase the refractive power.
Accommodation doesn't just happen to children; Adults also experience this process. When experiences introduce new information or new information conflicts with existing schemas, this new learning must be accommodated to ensure that what is within our mind adjusts to what exists in the real world.
Similarly, a child who grew up with a stereotype about a particular social group, when he grows up and leaves home to study at university, may suddenly find himself surrounded by people from that social group, through real experiences and interactions with people who belong to this group, he realizes that his previous knowledge is incorrect, which leads him to a drastic change, that is, he organizes his schemes about the people who belong to said social group.
