Adaptation and affect: toward a synthesis of Piagetian and psychoanalytic psychologies

In this model, we have assumed that Type I processes (assimilation) and Type II processes (accommodation) are theoretically independent, although of course no real system would ever demonstrate one without some of the other. This assumption permits a final elaboration: since there are eight states in Type I and eight in Type II, and if we assume these to be independent, the model predicts a minimum of 64 theoretically possible states of the organism. (While we have used three separate components of the feedback loop, this is not a maximum, since the feedback loop can be further subdivided. A further division would of course yield a larger number of states.) If these 64 states can be identified, and if rules of transformation can be found determining the transitions between these states, a theoretical basis for a general description of human behavior will have been achieved.