Capacity to Handle Unassimilable Material: Coping Strategies of Schizophrenics and Normals

With anxiety conceptualized as resulting from a backlog of unassimilable or incongruent material, two processes were postulated to reflect coping strategies, assimilation and accommodation. These were assessed by means of a “picture interpretation task.” The hypothesis that schizophrenics fail to cope with unassimilable material because they are unable to accommodate (the process of changing internal schemata) was supported. The second prediction that paranoids would increase assimilation while nonparanoids would suppress assimilation was not supported.