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

TreeBob

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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).

Seeing a 5 in action when they are really worried about something isn't pretty. I feel bad for them sometimes.
 

highlander

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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.

Interesting. I had a really hard time discerning my Enneagram type as well. I had to get professionally tested to be sure.

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.

I think there are probably common patterns of mistypes with Enneagram in the same way as there is in MBTI and I think you and [MENTION=6643]Fluffywolf[/MENTION] are right about the 5 mistyping. I guess my question relates to order of magnitude and how much of it there really is out there. Depending on how bad it is, it does impact the value of this kind of analysis. I have found honestly that many of the free Enneagram tests out there are really not good. The first one I came across that worked for me was Fauvre's test.
 

TreeBob

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Interesting. I had a really hard time discerning my Enneagram type as well. I had to get professionally tested to be sure.



I think there are probably common patterns of mistypes with Enneagram in the same way as there is in MBTI and I think you and [MENTION=6643]Fluffywolf[/MENTION] are right about the 5 mistyping. I guess my question relates to order of magnitude and how much of it there really is out there. Depending on how bad it is, it does impact the value of this kind of analysis. I have found honestly that many of the free Enneagram tests out there are really not good. The first one I came across that worked for me was Fauvre's test.

I think there is more mistyping in Enneagram then there is in MBTI (IMO). It is hard to test for inner drive/motivation where as MBTI is really a skin deep, how you act sort of thing. I'm not poo-pooing your stats, because I like stats and I always think there is value to doing this type of correlation. It is hard for people to admit their inner faults, and when you read enneagram descriptions they can be rather unflattering. A lot of people hate the whole 6 issue, but I think there are a lot more 6s in the world then stats say.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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Seeing a 5 in action when they are really worried about something isn't pretty. I feel bad for them sometimes.

Please describe it in general terms. I'm curious to learn more about 5s under the effects of stress and anxiety.
 

HongDou

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Seeing a 5 in action when they are really worried about something isn't pretty. I feel bad for them sometimes.

Lol, you should've seen my dad preparing to go on a hiking trip. :doh:
 

highlander

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A lot of people hate the whole 6 issue, but I think there are a lot more 6s in the world then stats say.

I was thinking the exact same thing this morning.
 

Lark

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Wait, so the majority of the forum is comprized of SJ's, and the least common type is INFJ? I find this extremely hard to believe?

Regardless, this is great to look at.

There a few more obvious INFJs years ago, the theory goes that SJs are the most common type and I think there is a confirmation bias on that front too, to be honest.

I know a lot of the questions used within most common MBTI tests, for instance, when taken by most social workers will produce SJ results if they give responses which are eschewed with their professional values or work practices, also a lot of the questions can ask questions without analysing why, I think there's a real difference between someone who values traditions, memory, social institutions for instance because reasons has persuaded them of it and those who believe it because of a gut instinct, also affect can play a role in that too which corresponds to Feeling too rather than Thinking, I could go on...

I'm interested in the Ennegram but thought it predated MBTI and was derived from Gudjureff or some other mystic.
 

Seymour

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I think the "normalizing" approach is interesting, but I think in order for it to be meaningful there's an implicit assumption that MBTI type is the primary thing that affects whether people participate in typology sites.

Consider as a hypothetical, that Enneagram 4s and 5s might be more likely to participate in a typology forum (regardless of MBTI type). Then, 4s and 5s of whatever type would be over-represented in the percentages for each type. There's no way to know if that's the case without an Enneagram representative sample drawn from the general population.

Still, I think the normalized values are interesting as a rough approximation of the likelihood of different types out in the real world.
 

TreeBob

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Please describe it in general terms. I'm curious to learn more about 5s under the effects of stress and anxiety.
So many things where this could manifest. Really just the fear of doing new things can set off a lot of 5s. They may go on the internet and find out as much as they can to prepare themselves for any eventuality. It all depends on their general health level at the time and how they deal with the anxiety. The more unhealthy they are, the more the anxiety is debilitating.

Lol, you should've seen my dad preparing to go on a hiking trip. :doh:

Yeah my wife getting ready for camping is kind of cute. She is an ISTP and she has to make a tonne of lists to get ready for it. We always forget a couple things, so afterwards she makes another list for the things we forgot so we won't forget next time.
 

highlander

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I think the "normalizing" approach is interesting, but I think in order for it to be meaningful there's an implicit assumption that MBTI type is the primary thing that affects whether people participate in typology sites.

Consider as a hypothetical, that Enneagram 4s and 5s might be more likely to participate in a typology forum (regardless of MBTI type). Then, 4s and 5s of whatever type would be over-represented in the percentages for each type. There's no way to know if that's the case without an Enneagram representative sample drawn from the general population.

Still, I think the normalized values are interesting as a rough approximation of the likelihood of different types out in the real world.

Yes, that part bothered me a bit. Can you think of any way to address that issue? I looked for some general Enneagram statistics to validate the percentages discovered here and had a very difficult time finding anything anywhere close to authoritative.

A quote from the Enneagram Institute on "Cultural Studies" may be relevant.

"Researchers will have to sample populations to determine the exact mix of the types in any given group or nationality. Nevertheless, we would not expect to find an even spread of the nine types across any population, whether it is the United States, a business, or your local church. For example, intuitively, it is clear that the population of the United States in 2003 is not made up of 11.1 percent of each of the nine types. Yet it is not clear what the precise composition of the American population is. Field testing with a validated test (such as the RHETI, version 2.5) would have to be done to determine the exact proportions in any large population with some degree of accuracy.

Even if this were done, it would not necessarily mean that the culture of a country would be directly reflected in the personality makeup of its citizens. Culture has deeper roots than the personality types of those who make it up at any given time. For example, if empirical testing were to reveal that in the United States in 2003 there was a predominance of types Six, Nine, and Seven, and that Six was numerically the largest group, this would not necessarily mean that the United States should be characterized as a Six country culturally—although over time it might become so.

Nevertheless, countries do seem to have a dominant personality type (or perhaps more appropriately, style), although we have observed that, in any country at a given time, three dominant types seem to be the main components of the “national character.” These three dominant types not only color the personality of the country as a whole, they also change from historical era to historical era. For example, we think that the United States in 2003 is culturally predominantly a Three, Six, and Seven country. This means that we see the Three’s drive for success, fame, status, narcissism, and concern for their career and image are major themes in the current American character. This is joined by the Seven’s love of the new and immediate, their high energy, love of change and variety, and insatiable consumerism. Added to these two threads are the Six’s traditionalism, conservatism, respect for law, authority and institutions, “family values,” and apprehensiveness about the future. These three types (seen metaphorically and psychologically) are the three uppermost elements in the American psyche at this time."


With regards to Geography, I don't have readily available statistics on the 4703 members included in this analysis. I know that 53% of our Internet traffic is from the US but that includes everybody visiting the site and isn't necessarily indicative of who is participating.
 

highlander

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It turns out I found some PersonalityCafe data that was out there from last year where some similar number crunching was done. I ran the same spreadsheet against it. The results come out very similarly in many ways with some differences. I was particularly interested in the types with smaller numbers (ESFJ, ESTJ). First on the overall Enneagram distribution, it looks pretty similar except there are a lot less 8s and more 6s on PersonalityCafe. NOTE, THIS IS BASED ON THE NORMALIZED DISTRIBUTION.



Some key data points.

INFP - More 2s and 5s vs 4s (but still a large majority of 4s).
ENFJ - Fewer 3s and 4s with the percentages split roughly across other types (except for 2 which is the same)
INFJ - Twice the number of 2s, a lot less 4s and higher percentage of 5 and 6
ENTP - Half the number of 8s with the rest spread across mostly 3 and 5
INTP - Fewer 5s and twice the number of 6s
INTJ - Four times the number of 6s which were 20% of all INTJs and 40% more 1s (14%).
ENTJ - A lot more 6s and a fair number more 3s and about 35% fewer 8s
ESTJ - A lot more 6s and fewer 3s and 8s
ESFJ - 50% fewer 2s (though still the highest) and 3s with the rest spread across other types
ISFP - Triple the number of 2s; numbers generally more spread out
ESTP - A lot fewer 8s

As the the normalized distribution, here it is. On the makeup of the Enneagram types, or the general themes I mentioned, while there are some significant changes in some of the individual percentages, the overall themes seem consistent.



The numbers for ESFJ and ESFP seemed potentially more aligned with reality due to larger sample size.
 

highlander

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One interesting observation about the PersonalityCafe numbers is it highlights how strongly correlated SJ is with Enneagram 6. SJs make up 69% of people who are Enneagram 6. It's more of a thing for Si doms (ISTJ and ISFJ) but the Si auxes (ESTJ and ESFJ) make up a significant portion of the population as well - stronger than the SPs. I wonder on that particular thing if it might have something to do with inferior or tertiary Ne vs. the dominant or auxiliary functions.
 

highlander

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Here is the same chart as I had above with the Personality Cafe data.

 

greenfairy

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This is great! It looks pretty accurate too. I would have thought more INTJs would be 3 though. It's also hard for me to get used to ENTPs being 8, but I guess the data doesn't lie. Unless the data providers are mistaken.
 

greenfairy

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These strong correlations are not surprising. Interesting to see the outliers and if those are people who change type frequently or are undecided, etc. but that would be difficult to measure. I second the earlier post about enneagram being a bit more difficult to self-type. It takes more reseach.

Really awesome read. Thanks [MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION]
Yeah I took forever to decide mine and changed it a few times.
 

Luv Deluxe

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This is pretty neat. Even if people have mistyped themselves, there's still a visible pattern and it's fun to study.

One of the biggest reasons I kind of drift away from the typology community pretty regularly is that it seems preoccupied with linking these two systems together, and my own types don't fit/match/coincide the way they're expected/supposed/thought to.

Sometimes I wish I could claim ISTP as my type instead, haha.
 

greenfairy

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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.

I was going to say, even though information can be gathered from a small sample size, is our sample size for the least common types on the forum too small to extrapolate to the general population? I think it would provide general trends, but those may be exaggerated and the information may lack depth. So I think more research should be done, but this is a good start.
 

Seymour

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Yes, that part bothered me a bit. Can you think of any way to address that issue? I looked for some general Enneagram statistics to validate the percentages discovered here and had a very difficult time finding anything anywhere close to authoritative.

A quote from the Enneagram Institute on "Cultural Studies" may be relevant. [...]

I don't know of any good source. In general, Enneagram instruments are "younger" and not of the same quality as the MBTI (or Big Five instruments). Instruments like the RHETI have some stats available, but that's from people who take the test, which is likely to be people interested in personality theory, and/or people who had it administered in a corporate work-place setting. Neither of those populations are likely to be representative of the general population.

Even the MBTI representative sample came from random phone calls, which may have skewed results towards people willing to take a random phone call. (Does that tend to favor extraverts? feelers? perceivers? Who knows!).

I would think the best bet for data collection would be a public high school (in a place where the vast majority of people go to public schools), although even then you'd have to factor in school drop-out rates. Colleges are generally uninterested in the Enneagram, because in its current state it is insufficiently scientific to be taken seriously by psychology departments.

I was going to say, even though information can be gathered from a small sample size, is our sample size for the least common types on the forum too small to extrapolate to the general population? I think it would provide general trends, but those may be exaggerated and the information may lack depth. So I think more research should be done, but this is a good start.

I think the main problem isn't the sample size (at least for many types), but rather the self-selection bias. The data we have describes people who participate (or at least register) on a typology forum. But I agree it's thought provoking.
[MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION], could you also post the count for each MBTI + enneagram type? It would be interesting to see which combos are the most populous. Another interesting piece of data would be post counts per MBTI + enneagram type (or average post count for each MBTI + enneagram type). That would give one an idea of what the mix of content looks like, rather than the mix of registered users.
 

TreeBob

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This is great! It looks pretty accurate too. I would have thought more INTJs would be 3 though. It's also hard for me to get used to ENTPs being 8, but I guess the data doesn't lie. Unless the data providers are mistaken.

ENTP are NOT mostly type 8. If you look again you will see that they are mostly type 7.
 

greenfairy

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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.

Maybe that is because Ni is synthetic- it acts to gather everything into itself. 9 does the same and has been described as being everything except the 9 itself. So one might imagine that there would be a correlation between Ni and 9, but ironically it would only be slight in my opinion because the trend of Ni would just be to be amenable to everything and to not have a correlation. Does this make sense? Of course 9 can be correlated with stuff, so maybe it doesn't.
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.
(I also suggested you were a 9w8. :) And typed myself as 9w1 for a long time.)

Also [MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION]: I would guess the SJs would be more likely to be primarily phobic 6s and some other types more likely to be more of a mix or more counterphobic. I personally feel like both all the time. I do not consider myself a loyalist or a traditionalist, but paradoxically I am loyal to being progressive and to philosophies which value freedom and critical thinking. I am traditional in the same way that primitive, prehistoric peoples are traditional and believe that being in tune with nature is best. So this is very different from most SJs and not the stereotypical 6 type of thing. What is your experience as a 6w5?

As far as Enneagram population statistics I feel like is would be very hard to do as it would mostly rely on self reporting and tests, which are largely inaccurate. At least with MBTI there is some sort of committee which oversees possible mistypes in some situations, although I have to be skeptical because a lot of the time they just administer the test in a workplace and you get all kinds of inaccurate information. I certainly would have been mistyped. I think the right way to go about it is how some tests do with giving a percentage of the likelihood of a certain result being accurate. I got INTJ first, which got 3 letters right. I only have a strong preference for N. I've gotten INTP and INFP often. So IN remains consistent, Fe and Ti are always stronger than Fi, etc. You would have to look at a lot of factors with people to infer what their type most likely is. Maybe have them take several tests and see which numbers they score highest and lowest on, consistently. See the patterns of ranking head, heart, and gut. Etc.
 
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