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[Traditional Enneagram] Meyers Briggs Tests and The Enneagram – A Strong Correlation

Tilt

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The main problem with determining MBTI vs Enneagram correlations is that it's one thing to have the personalities correlate, and quite another to have the actual types correlate. For example, I believe that a lot of E4s are mistyped as INFPs - and vice versa - because the personalities are so similar. Similarly, I think a lot of INTx types are wrongly typed as E5s - and vice versa - because the personalities match.

That's the main issue I had determining my E9 type. The E5 descriptions said all the "right things", but didn't really match: it describes a generic nerd. Similarly, the E9 type matched me in terms of motivations, but the personality descriptions have a ton of emo-fluff in them that didn't match me. I had to do the difficult work of figuring out what the Enneagram types "really meant" to get my type right. Once I arrived at INTJ E9, everything clicked: I think like an INTJ, I react like a E9.

While I'm only one data point, I currently believe that a lot of these correlations that we see in typical MBTI vs. Enneagram data aren't as significant as they might appear to be on the surface.

Agreed. I think that there is relevance and value to the correlations between the two systems but it sometimes seems like once people find their "right" type in one system, there is a temptation to want to fit neatly into the other one and have the two clearly match up (due to the very nature of categorizing). One could easily follow and understand the underlying thought process of the fellow members of a certain type but with the subjectivity and the variability found in the human experience, there is going to range of motivations that are going to affect actions and reactions. This is why I would be hard-pressed to say certain combinations are impossible, albeit maybe quite rare.
 

highlander

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I'd say that the percentage of people mistyping themselves in MBTI, due to the relative ease with which an MBTI type can be found, is small enough not to worry about. But I'm not convinced the same holds up about people selftyping their enneagram.

Certain correlations seem exaggerated due to similarity of type descriptions and shared archetypes, themes, traits, etc (as [MENTION=6643]Fluffywolf[/MENTION] noted about INTP 5s; my rough guess would be that it's probably something closer to 25-50% of INTPs who are true 5s, although I think it would still be present in many INTPs' tritype configurations) and I think this is an important caveat to remember whenever we try to correlate these 2 systems.

While I do think this is useful and interesting to see, I'm not sure I'd agree that enough members here type themselves correctly for this to be especially reliable data.

I think too much is made of this mis-typing thing. So many people think they are better at typing others than they are. I predicted this issue would be raised before posting the thread. I myself was mistyped for a while as an 8 - so yes it is a real issue. It might be a bigger issue for Enneagram than MBTI. I don't know. In either case as to the perceptions of massive mistyping, I will provide myself as a case in point - there have been those who were completely certain that I am an ISTJ, an INTP, or ISFJ. I have also had people say I'm a 9 or a 5 and not a 6. They were all certain that I was mistyped and they were all wrong. However, the interesting point from this data is that there is an explanation for these false perceptions. INTJ 6s are not common. 6 is heavily associated with Si dominance. I don't "feel" like an Ni dom to them. But then again, I don't feel like a 6 either because I seem too calm so I must be a 9 or a 5, etc. One value in understanding these correlations is that it helps lead towards understanding on the vast differences between MBTI types based on their Enneagram type.

I counter this concern about mistyping with two things. I think overall the likely accuracy of data on an established personality type website is about as good as anywhere. Secondly, in my opinion, there is enough data here to eliminate much of that mistyping issue. I wish we had more data for a few of the types but the fact is you can extrapolate meaning out of relatively small sample sizes. Small samples are much better than we think.

Has anyone ever read the results of the Fauvre Enneatype/mbti study? They likely wouldn't want it posted here- I'm just wondering if anyone found it useful/insightful enough to seek out and read. I got the impression she was going to weed out the information from people who mistyped themselves- at least on the enneagram end. She made some comment about how she could tell, based on the questions she asked, when someone was wrong about their enneagram type.

I have not seen a printed study. I did ask Katherine Fauvre to forward it when she finished it so we could look at it, because we helped to promote it and my only ask was that we receive information back when the results were compiled. She did send me a recording from the Global Enneagram Summit which is posted here.
 

á´…eparted

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Both of you are missing the normalization aspect here which [MENTION=6554]/DG/[/MENTION] mentioned. The first chart and tables with the colorful bars is based on actual data present for each type and what the percentages are for each enneatype. The second chart has been normalized to fit the "world" population so to speak by converting the numbers into what they would look if the forum had the CPP distributions. You really have to look at these two completely different sets of data - different angles so to speak to derive the conclusions that I did - like 1 and 6 being associated mostly with sensing types - or that there are a lot of 2s. For example, on the second chart, the ISFJ is going to count 9 times as much as INFJ in terms of numbers. The normalization pushed numbers down for some types and pushed them up for others. The reason there are a lot of 2s overall is because they have high numbers for certain types that are very common in the population. It doesn't mean they are the most common type on the forum. They're not. Enneagram 4 and 5 are the most common type on the forum because of the disproportionate number of INFs.

I'll have to post other tables a bit later.

That seems like... a really weird and unproductive way to analyze the data :huh:.

I sort of see the value of it, because it's trying to use the data to see if it matches the expectations we see from other data sets. It operates under the assumption that those data sets are accurate though (which I have always suspect aren't, due to how much they can differ). I mean, I've seen data sets that report INFJ's to be the most common. We'd effectively have to have a giant meta study of ALL polling for types to figure out what the split up is most likely.

I guess it's also cause I wanted to see the second chart of just typoC data. Either way this is all good, and again good job and thanks for doing this :)
 

Doctor Cringelord

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I think too much is made of this mis-typing thing. So many people think they are better at typing others than they are. I predicted this issue would be raised before posting the thread. I myself was mistyped for a while as an 8 - so yes it is a real issue. It might be a bigger issue for Enneagram than MBTI. I don't know. In either case as to the perceptions of massive mistyping, I will provide myself as a case in point - there have been those who were completely certain that I an ISTJ, an INTP, or ISFJ. I have also had people say I'm a 9 or a 5 and not a 6. They were all certain that I was mistyped and they were all wrong. However, the interesting point from this data is that there is an explanation for these false perceptions. INTJ 6s are not common. 6 is heavily associated with Si dominance. I don't "feel" like an Ni dom to them. But then again, I don't feel like a 6 either because I seem too calm so I must be a 9 or a 5, etc. One value in understanding these correlations is that it helps lead towards understanding on the vast differences between MBTI types based on their Enneagram type.

I counter this concern about mistyping with two things. I think overall the likely accuracy of data on an established personality type website is about as good as anywhere. Secondly, in my opinion, there is enough data here to eliminate much of that mistyping issue. I wish we had more data for a few of the types but the fact is you can extrapolate meaning out of relatively small sample sizes. Small samples are much better than we think.



I have not seen a printed study. I did ask Katherine Fauvre to forward it when she finished it so we could look at it, because we helped to promote it and my only ask was that we receive information back when the results were compiled. She did send me a recording from the Global Enneagram Summit which is posted here.

I'm not saying we need to make a big deal out of mistypes in systems which rely heavily on self-reporting results, but it should be at least be mentioned as a footnote or side note. With any poll, there is going to be margin of error to help account for such a caveat.
 

fetus

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I could see it manifest in a rare few individuals. It would be unusual for sure. I've come across ISFP-8's before though, and that definitely works).

Sure. They'd probably have a 9 wing, and be very focused on staunch independence/individualism (not exactly in a 4 way, though). Appear more like a thinker.

My take on that.
 

uumlau

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An INFP 8 would indeed be odd.

Assuming that such can exist, they could easily be MBTI typed as a TJ of some sort, even a Te dom, with their "in the grip" episodes easily being mistaken for Fi inferior as opposed to Te inferior.

The problem wouldn't be that it's necessarily impossible, but such a person would almost certainly be mistyped on the MBTI or the Enneagram side.
 

highlander

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That seems like... a really weird and unproductive way to analyze the data :huh:.

I sort of see the value of it, because it's trying to use the data to see if it matches the expectations we see from other data sets. It operates under the assumption that those data sets are accurate though (which I have always suspect aren't, due to how much they can differ). I mean, I've seen data sets that report INFJ's to be the most common. We'd effectively have to have a giant meta study of ALL polling for types to figure out what the split up is most likely.

I guess it's also cause I wanted to see the second chart of just typoC data. Either way this is all good, and again good job and thanks for doing this :)

At first, I had started out with an idea that the analysis would just have to be limited based on how the population the forum is skewed. Again, the first chart which looked at how common Enneagram types were within each of the MBTI types - that is based on non-normalized data.

However, I wanted to understand for a particular Enneagram type - what MBTI types mapped to them. There was simply no way of coming up with any conclusions whatsoever about that without doing something different. Our forum has way too many introverts and intuitives and not enough extraverts and sensors. The data is skewed. So I came up with this idea to normalize the data. I had to do it based on what I know. I know the forum's distribution of MBTI types. I know that isn't representative of the world's population as a whole. We have to trust something to get a "grounding" as it were. I am taking the leap of faith that the CPP percentages are the best data available because it's based on many years of data collection from a pretty trustworthy source - the people that develop and manage the instrument. To get an idea of the difference between the forum's distribution and the CPP distribution, I created this graph while I was doing the analysis just to visualize it.



The fact that the percentage of forum members is nearly inverse of the percentages published by CPP was something I guess I already knew but looking at the picture highlights why people with less common types might be attracted to a forum like this.

So I came up with the idea to normalize the data. The chart below illustrates the beginnings of that thought process on how to normalize it. I thought about what the numbers would be if we had the CPP distribution on the forum. This is shown in the Normalized Total column in the spreadsheet. I am not a statistician, but it seemed reasonable to me that if we could run the math and normalize them around what the CPP percentages are, that there would be additional insights that might be gained. It was an experiment of sorts. It did in fact lead to a lot of the insights I mention above and I feel more confident in those things because what the data was telling me seems intuitively right.

 

Bush

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Those poor, poor ESFJs. They aren't around to defend themselves from all the bullshit :dont:

I'm pleasantly surprised at how well all of the Enneatypes are represented.
 

uumlau

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Thanks for the numbers [MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION]

It looks like the very small number of ESFJs in the forum is getting multiplied by about 30x in order to be "normalized", making the their particular correlation with E2 similarly multiplied. If you have 20 data points, the single sigma level on that is 1/sqrt(20), or about 20-25%, thus the weighted E2 percentage is going to be similarly noisy, meaning that it's within a single sigma of the 12% and 11% results. The runners up make more sense, in that they're the common types on the forum: 4, 5, 6 and 9. These latter ones have an unnatural weighting due to forum participants generally being introverted, and 4, 5 and 9 are particularly introverted Enneagram types.

I think our forum data is a bit too noisy to be normalized in a meaningful way, especially for the rare types. We can, however, come up with reasonable statistics about the common types on the forum, especially the INxx types.
 

highlander

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Thanks for the numbers [MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION]

It looks like the very small number of ESFJs in the forum is getting multiplied by about 30x in order to be "normalized", making the their particular correlation with E2 similarly multiplied. If you have 20 data points, the single sigma level on that is 1/sqrt(20), or about 20-25%, thus the weighted E2 percentage is going to be similarly noisy, meaning that it's within a single sigma of the 12% and 11% results. The runners up make more sense, in that they're the common types on the forum: 4, 5, 6 and 9. These latter ones have an unnatural weighting due to forum participants generally being introverted, and 4, 5 and 9 are particularly introverted Enneagram types.

I think our forum data is a bit too noisy to be normalized in a meaningful way, especially for the rare types. We can, however, come up with reasonable statistics about the common types on the forum, especially the INxx types.

You are right. It is getting multiplied like that. I have lower confidence in the absolute percentages related to the ESFJs and ESTJs. I have similarly lower confidence because of the "noisyness" you mention. Even with that though, there are absolutely inferences to be drawn from the data.

I think we can say with confidence even with the smaller sample size that it is highly likely that a large percentage of ESFJs are 2s and highly likely that a large percentage of ESTJs are 8s and 3s. It doesn't seem implausible that 1 is a relatively common type for the ESTJ or that 3 is relatively common type for an ESFJ.

The data doesn't have to be perfect to be useful.
 

highlander

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[MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION] this is very interesting. Thank you for running these numbers. I'm also surprised that there aren't more Ni dominant nines.

One interesting thing. I felt like I could see correlations between Enneagram type and practically every single Cognitive Function

  • Si and 1
  • Se/Ne and 7
  • Fe and 2
  • Introversion + Ti/Te and 5
  • Fi and 4
However, I couldn't see a correlation between Ni and anything whatsoever in Enneagram.
 

fetus

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One interesting thing. I felt like I could see correlations between Enneagram type and practically every single Cognitive Function

  • Si and 1
  • Se/Ne and 7
  • Fe and 2
  • Introversion + Ti/Te and 5
  • Fi and 4
However, I couldn't see a correlation between Ni and anything whatsoever in Enneagram.

I have always had trouble distinguishing the functions and Enneagram types--mostly Fe and 2, and Fi and 4. Some have said that Ni correlates to 4w5, but I don't know.
 

highlander

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I have always had trouble distinguishing the functions and Enneagram types--mostly Fe and 2, and Fi and 4. Some have said that Ni correlates to 4w5, but I don't know.

That is the one thing I could think of - but it really only applies for INFJs and there are also lots of INFPs that are 4w5 too. You don't see many 4w5s in INTJ or ENTJ. 4 isn't uncommon for ENFJ as 16% of them are that Enneagram type. However twice as many ENFJs were 4w3 than 4w5.
 

Ene

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One interesting thing. I felt like I could see correlations between Enneagram type and practically every single Cognitive Function

  • Si and 1
  • Se/Ne and 7
  • Fe and 2
  • Introversion + Ti/Te and 5
  • Fi and 4
However, I couldn't see a correlation between Ni and anything whatsoever in Enneagram.

Yes, exactly. That's what I was looking for. I wonder why it isn't there or at least not easily discernable. It makes it difficult for Ni users to pinpoint their Etype. At least it did for me, not a 4, not a 3, not a 5 or a six....eek, I was like "what can I be?" I think it was [MENTION=21883]sunyata[/MENTION] that suggested I might be a 9, so I really looked into 9s and it does fit best, but still, I don't think Ni dominance correlates well with the Enneagram.

Also, E3 seems to be in moderately heavy use among ESFPs and ISFPs, so I'm wondering if its fairly strong presence is due to a combo of dominant and auxiliary functions.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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It would surely explain why many people over the years have assuemed I am an Si user.

Certain people said I must be ISFJ when I typed as a 9 because Riso & Hudson correlate 9 with the ISJs. However, others correlate 9 with Ni and some with IP types. Personally, I think there is a strong correlation between 9 and most introverted types. I'm not sure about 1 because I'm less familiar with that type and I'm not interested in further learning about enneagram at this point, but I thought it correlated well with EJ types in general rather than with a specific cognitive function.

Type Correlations
 

TreeBob

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It is pretty interesting, even considering the many mistypes there are, some of the correlations are so defined, it would be hard to imagine that mistypes would account for them.

On the correlation you found of INTP's with enneagram 5. Due to the nature of INTP's and the description of 5, it can be said that they are matches made in heaven. But on the other, that they are also often mistyped because they are so well matched.

How many INTP's would mistype themselves as enneagram 5? I certainly did at first, although after some introspection I came to realize I was wrong. It remains that enneagram 5 speaks to pretty much every INTP in some way. But enneagram is a bit more tricky like that, dealing more in the subconscious than in the conscious. Still, I changed it after some time, others who type themselves wrongly at first might fix it later on. But INTP's are pretty good procrastinators. I'd say there is also a fair amount of INTP's that have likely settled on the idea of what their enneagram is and not bothered investigating it properly. How many? 10%? 50%? Even more would probably be unlikely, so I would not question the fact that enneagram 5 is most prominant amongst INTP's. Just that I doubt the line is as thick as the numbers prove it to be.

I'd say that the percentage of people mistyping themselves in MBTI, due to the relative ease with which an MBTI type can be found, is small enough not to worry about. But I'm not convinced the same holds up about people selftyping their enneagram.

I agree with your statements above. 5 is one of my particular mistype pet peeves because many NTs are drawn to it because of the perceived correlation between intelligence/research and 5s. A 5 researches because of their anxieties/need of being prepared for any eventualities of specific situations. Many NTs give the description a quick read and equate that to being highly intelligent people who are good in school or some shit.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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I agree with your statements above. 5 is one of my particular mistype pet peeves because many NTs are drawn to it because of the perceived correlation between intelligence/research and 5s. A 5 researches because of their anxieties/need of being prepared for any eventualities of specific situations. Many NTs give the description a quick read and equate that to being highly intelligent people who are good in school or some shit.

True.

My grades sucked in school because I was more interested in researching and pondering topics that were outside of the curriculum (except in the subjects I enjoyed, in which case I performed very well). (I'm not saying this makes me a 5 but rather that I can understand why it might appeal to NTs).
 
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