What is Barack Obama's type?

[Nicodemus]

Judging by the documentaries I have seen, I would say ESTP.

 

[Speed Gavroche]

ENTP 3w4 So/Sp.

 

[Mal12345]

Don't think an ENTJ would have as useless a first term as Obama has had. His idealistic desire of bipartisan cooperation just doesn't work if the other side doesn't want to play ball and to keep trying just alienates his own support base. His style seems more NF.

Agreed. Maybe INFP?

 

[Orangey]

ISFJ.

 

[Elfboy]

ISFJ.

I think INFJ, but I think you're closer than most of the other people on here. he is agenda driven and subtly directing

 

[Elfboy]

ENTP 3w4 So/Sp.

not ENTP. ENTP 3w4 So/Sp is more like Richard Dawkins (more technical and intellectual)

 

[Mal12345]

ISFJ.

Why?

 

[Mal12345]

I think INFJ, but I think you're closer than most of the other people on here. he is agenda driven and subtly directing

Unlike your avatar.

 

[Speed Gavroche]

not ENTP. ENTP 3w4 So/Sp is more like Richard Dawkins (more technical and intellectual)

Ruchard Dawkins is an INTP 3w4 So/Sp. Indeed more technical and intelectual than the ENTP Barack O. INFJ (as you sugest he is), are holistic dreamer oriented toward contemplation, that's not him. Anyway, it's wrong to say that Barck O is an introvert since he demonstrated that he is energised by social contact, have an expanding energy and is natural at gaining attention and dealing with a lot of people in a fast-paced way. He is and always was the one who initiates contact and engage in active debate without value judgement but bouncing of ideas, logic and social skills. INFJ repress Se, meaning they may forget to live life to the fullest and be in accordance with the preseent, Barack O is not like that, he is a resolutely modern politician and it seems that he's quite fun to be around and at time a bit goofy.

And, for all of you, stop that joke to say that B Obama is an idealist, lol.

 

[Sol_]

ENFP
USA's next president

 

[highlander]

President Obama is an Enneagram 9w1

I found this analysis to be pretty interesting about Obama and his type. I have thought that he is a 9.

President Obama: Enneagram Type 9, Part 1 | Psychology Today

President Obama, Enneagram Type 9, Part 2 | Psychology Today

 

[yeghor]

I found this analysis to be pretty interesting about Obama and his type. I have thought that he is a 9.

President Obama: Enneagram Type 9, Part 1 | Psychology Today

President Obama, Enneagram Type 9, Part 2 | Psychology Today

Is there a consensus about his MBTI type? I think he's an ENFJ. If that's so, I would expect his enneagram type to be a 3.

An excerpt from the article:

He said he didn’t get high to prove how great he was (9s are often modest), but rather in order to push questions of who he was out of his mind.

This lack of identity might be stemming from enneagram 3 (compulsion to build identity to appease others and win their approval). The article says his 9w1 side won over his enneagram 3 side but I doubt it. If that was the case, he would become an introvert, most likely an ISFJ.

So what's his commonly accepted MBTI type?

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I think he is an ENTP. 9w1 makes sense though.

 

[skylights]

I tend to think ENFJ for him, but I could see ENTP. I think 9w1 is a good typing for him. I've heard 3 before - I've generally thought of him as ENFJ 3 - but it's hard to tell which wing. He doesn't ring particularly either 3w2 or 3w4. 9w1 seems like a very good fit.

 

[Mal12345]

As soon as I read the part about Obama using marijuana as a teenager to indicate he's a 9, I realized the author of the article is using stereotyping. The author then backs up his stereotyping with cherry-picked Obama quotes. I do agree with the author that Obama shows 9, 6, and 3 traits.

On the other hand, noting that Obama "spent too much time in front of the mirror," (edit - AND THIS WAS ON HIS WEDDING DAY ANYWAY!) - while definitely a sign of 3 narcissism, does not mean he is a 3 either. What matters is that the majority of his personality traits come from a single type, and that this points to his life motivation.

So in this respect, let's consider his personality, and not dreams of his dead father. Obama's life motivation is characterized by a quest for identity. See for example
FRONTLINE’s Coverage of President Obama | Inside Obama
"The Choice 2012 intimately follows the odyssey of young Barry Obama from near-poverty in Indonesia to his marijuana-smoking “Choom Gang” days in Hawaii, then to college in California and New York, where he moved inexorably toward finding a home in Chicago’s black community. Consumed by youthful angst, Obama’s own journals and letters reveal a confused young man on an identity quest. By the end of his journey, Barry becomes Barack, and a political method is born."
And this blogger's analysis is also interesting.
The long shadow of Barack Obama’s identity crisis | Power Line

 

[Mal12345]

I hate the way I wrote my last post to this thread, so I deleted it.

"If there’s one thing that is consistent with Obama throughout his life, it’s his desire to see all sides of issues. This and his desire to be fair, especially, indicate that he is primarily a 9-Peace Seeker."

The problem with many type analyses of presidents is that the analysts fail to over come their biases regarding the president. For example, many enneagrammists of a liberal or democratic bias think or thought that Reagan was a type 8. But from the objective standpoint of history, that belief is rendered ludicrous almost on its very face.

The same tendency toward bias is found with the author of the article in the OP. The idea that Obama seeks to see all sides of an issue and to be fair is not borne out in his one-sided political method for which he has been roundly criticized. Obama has had every opportunity to be fair with Congress; instead, he makes every effort to bypass Congress.

One thing that IS consistent with Obama is his quest for identity that comes from his childhood abandonment and sense of not belonging. Even after his first presidential race, he stated that he had no values-identity before the race began (I'm looking for the exact quote), and that it was during the race that he found out where he stands on many issues. But this came, not through any kind of internal values-pondering (Fi), but through whichever voter base his campaign was targeting.

In college in Hawaii, Barry Obama chose to hang with the outliers of society: doing drugs, playing loud music, and burning cigarette holes in carpets. This is without a doubt his rebellion phase, although rebellion has its psychological roots in something else, and is methodological of the average type 4 "rebel without a cause."

If say Barry was a type 3, I would expect that he would be well-versed in societal values from a very young age. Perhaps he would have been if he was not from a broken, non-traditional family. But given the values-vacuum young Barry found himself in, and lacking any firm moral foundation either internally or externally, Barry just sort of drifted into whatever groups would accept him. He's also stated that drug use helped him to escape from his internal compulsion to find himself by seeking out his roots. Theoretically, this may be indicative of a 3-wing deteriorating to 9, but it does not mean that Barry was or is a 9. Rather, the 4's quest for values is indicative of a 4 trying to integrate to 1, or as Riso stated in Personality Types, moving "from the world of subjectivity [from which Barry was trying to escape] to the world of objectivity" which would have been hindered by his drug use.

As for MBTI, I'll go with INFJ, in an Ni-Ti loop. And 4w3, a conflicted type that at once seeks both individuality and external success.

 

[Mal12345]

President Obama: Enneagram Type 9, Part 1 | Psychology Today
"Obama left his mother and grandparents in Hawaii and went off to college in California, where he expressed something of an anti-authoritarian nature, typical of a Six, the Questioner in the Enneagram."

So typical of a Six. So so typical.

I wonder if world-famous enneagram author Elizabeth Wagele has any more such gems for us?

 

[ginniebean]

I think he's a 1w9 Dominant. My guess is he has 6 and 3 in other centres. He doesn't strike me as dominant on the triangle. If you read what he has to say there is a strong perfectionist streak.

 

[Mal12345]

'At about this same time he [Obama] got in touch with his fear, the emotion that runs many Sixes. “The same fear that had caused me to push Coretta away back in grammar school. The same fear that had caused me to ridicule Tim in front of Marcus and Reggie. The constant, crippling fear that I didn’t belong somehow, that unless I dodged and hid and pretended to be something I wasn’t I would forever remain an outsider, with the rest of the world, black and white, always standing in judgment.”'

Well, let's just put it this way: every type on the enneagram has a Basic Fear. So fear is not THE type 6 emotion, because fear runs through every type on the enneagram.

The Basic Fear of the Four: That they have no identity or personal significance..."that unless I dodged and hid and pretended to be something I wasn’t..." Once again, identity is Obama's life issue, "pretending to be something I wasn't," or inauthenticity.

- - - Updated - - -

As for the possibility of Obama as a type 1: "...pretended to be something I wasn’t I would forever remain an outsider, with the rest of the world, black and white, always standing in judgment."

This statement sounds like a type 1's opposite.

 

[Jaguar]

Obama left his mother and grandparents in Hawaii and went off to college in California, where he expressed something of an anti-authoritarian nature

Considering the large number of rebellious teenagers who fit that description, I don't consider it relevant to a particular enneagram type.