Given the central role played by anticipation in the process of navigating our changing environment, it is worth noting that anticipation is dominant with assimilation. When there is a good match with an existing schema, while preparing for the immediate future, then little adjustment is needed in either the baseline or actions to be taken. We “relax” with our “beliefs” regarding the environment we must encounter and will often engage habitual behavior and rely on simple heuristics associated with the schema we have applied to the current situation.
For instance, if we enter a meeting room and find that a good friend is present, then we embrace our “good friend” schemata and imagine appropriate action to be taken based on this schema. We immediately imagine how we have always greeted this person, or how we are accustomed to greeting good friends. We imagine smiling, briskly walking over to this person and either shaking their hand or giving them a hug. We imagine offering some well-rehearsed words of greeting (e.g. “Great to see you today” or “Wow, what a joy to see that you are here at the meeting.”).
All this takes place in a very brief period of time and is rarely a process of which we are aware. We consider (anticipate) how our friend is likely to react to the actions we anticipate taking. Our assumption is that they will like what we are doing and saying. Given this assumption, we enact what we have imagined. Typically, all of this processing is guided by habit (the way we “always” greet a friend), and involves what Daniel Kahneman (2011) labeled “fast-thinking.”
What happens if we mistake the person we see in the meeting room? What if this person looks like a friend but is actually someone we have never met. We quickly adjust our imagined actions and even our baseline (what will make us comfortable in this relationship). Alternatively, this person is a friend but is also someone from a quite different culture. Our habitual greeting might be inappropriate. We sort through our “catalogue” of behavior patterns.
We select one that would seem to be more appropriate for this person and their culture. We quickly imagine what we will do in meeting this person, imagine what their reactions are likely to be, and then engage what we have imagined will be appropriate. While this readjusted set of greeting behaviors is quickly processed, it requires a bit more of Kahneman’s “slow thinking.” Regular habitual behavior must be set aside. Non-habitual behavior must be retrieved from our memory of past encounters with this person or with other people from their culture. We imagine a quite different scenario in greeting this person.
All this anticipation and adjustment is engaged in the midst of a broader process of assimilation and accommodation. With assimilation, anticipation is quick. It requires very little adjustment. By contrast, as evident in meeting a person who looks like but is not a friend, or a person who comes from a different culture, accommodation will replace the accustomed (habitual) assimilation. As a sidenote, some of us are inclined to apply assimilation all or most of the time. We live with strong schemata that dominate our actions and are often self-fulfilling.
