Question About Enneagram 5s

[Sunshine]

Do enneagram 5s come with an extra helping of curiosity?

[Thursday]

more like " analysis "

[Thursday]

Enneagram Type 5 - The Investigator

[Magic Poriferan]

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]

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]

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]

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.