• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

[Type 5] Question About Enneagram 5s

Sunshine

New member
Joined
Apr 25, 2008
Messages
1,040
MBTI Type
ABCD
Enneagram
4
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Do enneagram 5s come with an extra helping of curiosity?
 

Thursday

Earth Exalted
Joined
Mar 14, 2008
Messages
3,960
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Enneagram
8w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
more like " analysis "
 

Magic Poriferan

^He pronks, too!
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
14,081
MBTI Type
Yin
Enneagram
One
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
In a sense. Fives will not necessarily be more aggresively curious than other types, but they do tend to be more observant and analytical.

They are passive types, and they are emotionally detached types. The combination sort of naturally leads Fives down the path of critical analysis, like a computer. So this gaining of poewr be through comprehension can definitely manifest like curiosity. Again, I have to say that expressing the more aggressive, excitable, and spontaneous kinds of curiosity is not as much of a type Five quality.
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
50,192
MBTI Type
BELF
Enneagram
594
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Actually, in the Enneagram (Riso and Hudson's anyway), often the types are built on some sort of coping mechanisms.

There might be a positive curiosity to the Fives, but they also have a high-level of anxiety. They usually fear their own incompetence and/or failure, and their strategy is to study something from outside the system until they understand it enough to engage. They only do this when their confidence increases enough. Meanwhile, this also contributes to them being people who learn learn learn all they can and "talk about things" without necessarily doing things -- that is their comfort zone and where they feel competent.

This is why the Direction of Integration is to Eight, which is the "engage and boldly enter the situation" type. A Five with confidence and peace can enter a situation without knowing everything first, trusting their abilities to get them through in the moment.

An average Five remains aloof and non-committal, afraid to engage and fail.

A weak Five will try to engage the world out of desperation... but as a consumer, not a contributor. (Hence the slide into negative Seven, where addictive sensory behavior starts to predominate.)

It's part of the Head/Thinking triad, a "move away" strategy, and generally ambivalent.
 

PursuitOfHappiness

New member
Joined
May 4, 2014
Messages
14
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Curiosity sounds more like an E6 thing...so maybe you have come across a type 5 with a 6 wing that seems like he has an extra helping of curiosity.
 

Seymour

Vaguely Precise
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Messages
1,579
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Curiosity sounds more like an E6 thing...so maybe you have come across a type 5 with a 6 wing that seems like he has an extra helping of curiosity.

Huh... I think a quick google shows e5 is more strongly associated with curiosity than e6. For an e5, learning things and figuring stuff out has multiple "positive" benefits (from the perspective of an unhealthy defense system). First, it makes the world a more understandable place, which helps the e5 make up for a felt deficiency in dealing with the external world. Secondly, learning provides a focus for distraction and intellectualization, which makes it possible to avoid real physical or emotional engagement. Thirdly, it helps delay actions which might reveal the e5's perceived inadequacy externally.

So I'd say the e5 curiosity is mostly an intellectual one. It doesn't necessarily lead to action (usually the opposite), nor does it necessarily involve showing curiosity externally (since the learning and preparation are done mostly in private). I'd also say that curiosity is sometimes targeted to specific areas of interest, and there may be a marked lack of curiosity about other areas that don't engage the e5's intellect.
 
Top