equilibration

Description
Equilibration was described by Piaget as a dynamic process of self-regulated behavior balancing two intrinsic polar behaviors, assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation (to make similar) is activity, the organization of experience; it is the individual’s self-assertive tendency, a tendency to view, understand, and act on the “surround” with one’s own activity or ideas in order to preserve one’s autonomy as a part within a whole system.

According to Piaget, an organism (or system) attempts to conserve its previously held behaviors and/or beliefs and thus "new situations" eventually result in an accommodation due to the effects or pressures of the environment. And in this process, the organism couples with its surround.

Quotes
Equilibration has often been misinterpreted in the literature. It is not a sequential process of assimilation, then conflict, then accommodation; it is not linear. Nor is assimilation a process of “taking in information” as it has sometimes been described. Equilibration is instead a nonlinear, dynamic “dance’ of progressive equilibria, adaptation and organization, growth and change.