TENDING THE GARDEN OF PERSONALITY - COMMENTARY

In this Commentary for the special issue of the Journal of Personality , we discuss the uses and limitations of taxonomies in personality, dr awing on the role of taxonomic efforts in other sciences. We endorse M cAdams's concept of several ''levels'' (perhaps three: traits, motives and cognitive structures, and core unity themas or identity) for orde ring and arranging the major variables of personality. We argue that t hese levels should be considered independent and distinct: Each level has its own range of convenience, and no level can be reduced to any o ther level. We suggest that the concept of conflict-within and across levels-is a useful way to understand certain problematic cases. Finall y, we argue that the social macrocontext (gender, class, race, culture , and history) has unfortunately been neglected in most personality th eories and taxonomies of variables. We illustrate the importance of so cial macrocontext with a brief discussion of the case of Maya Angelou.