Abilities in Modern Foreign Psychology

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problems of the state of abilities in modern foreign psychology. At the basis of American psychology, the historical dynamics of a significant increase in the interest of foreign psychologists in the development of problems of abilities in the 20th-21st centuries are stated. The analysis is carried out on the basis of research in leading scientific publications published in 1991–2024. Their multidimensional and qualitative characteristics are based on a methodological and functional method of analysis, which makes it possible to distinguish types of research, their subject, method, empirical object, as well as relation to abilities such as object formation or measurement. A comparative description of the abilities of American and Russian psychology allows us to establish their thematic unity at the level of research (dominance of empirical potential), their subject (predominance of interest in general abilities), method (predominance of quantitative potential), as well as the predominance of functional measurement potential for determining problems of abilities. The distinctive features of the capabilities of American psychology are the Western volume of meta-analytic theoretical research, as well as the predominance of groups of subjects as the object of empirical research. In conclusion, it is argued that the experience of American psychology can be used in international studies of problems of abilities, in organizing discussions of some classification bases of types of abilities, in work on the number of specialized scientific publications.