Not that I disagree with the overall thrust of the OP. I don't. My experience is, mainly in US culture, that many people tend to mistype as both 4 and 5...likely because this culture discourages quiet, thoughtful, sensitive people. There's a similar propensity in Japan to mistype as 8...likely because the culture discourages independence and open anger so much. Etc. This is not controversial--noted practitioners such as Russ Hudson have openly commented on the phenomenon.
What I do find irritating about the content of the OP is the sheer bad faith it implies. I feel like it says more about the 6 mindset than what's actually going on with others, idk.
Maybe I feel strongly about this because I once mistyped as 4, too. Actually I didn't type as anything for about 14 years, but when I was forced to decide between 4 and 6 on Personality Café, well. Typing at 4 was at least a step in the right direction.
For the record,
my own family kept trying to type me as 4 or 5 (I mention my family not because I'm being "other referential", but so that the reader knows I'm not just patting myself on the back here). It had very little to do with me "wanting" to be
unique or
a genius or whatever (an insulting assumption, actually), and more to do with the actual issues I've dealt with and personality traits I exhibit--eg, social awkwardness, creativity, a love of science, withdrawnness, emotional turbulence, detachment, inability to make friends, drama, depression, being "too quiet", feelings of being different and separate, etc. I find this part even more annoying:
The stereotypical avatars of the forum's 4s (black and white pictures expressing sadness, or a quandary) are a good example of what I mean, and they are becoming tiresome to view every day. I do not sense much originality; all I see is conformity created by the fear of appearing unlike a 4, and this fear itself is antithetical to being a 4 (or an sx, or a Fi user for that matter).
I suppose I'm one of the people that set off this tirade, with my conformist black and white avatars.
Problem being,
I took my avatars directly from black and white films. Old un-colourised cinematography from times past. Yes, I was impersonating a film character I admired. First Sanjuro from Akira Kurosawa's eponymous film...and now, young Ivan the Terrible from Eisenstein's.
You can accuse me of merging my identity with someone else; you can accuse me of being absurd, or narcissistic to embrace such larger-than-life characters; hell, you can accuse me of copyright infringement or cultural appropriation...but ffs, DO NOT ACCUSE ME OF CONFORMITY. That is a losing battle. I made my avatar-username combo based on something that resonated with me from within--as I have done with everything throughout my whole life. What the hell other people on a goddamn typology forum were also doing
did not factor a single shred into my choices.
I hope that is just perfectly clear. The assumptions in the OP aren't necessarily accurate.
Not everyone typing as 4 is a 6 in disguise. Some of us are legitimately 4s, others of us are just 4ish people of other types (eg, sx9s or sx7s, disintegrated 1s, you name it). Not everyone on these forums is playing image games, or "creating personas", or "putting on facades", or lying to themselves, or whatever sinister plot people seem to infer on these forums. In fact, I hear some of us are actually using the enneagram for inner work and better self-understanding.
I think a certain amount of tolerance for the process and assumption good faith is in order. People who are serious about this stuff will realize their mistype eventually. Those who aren't will just leave and forget the whole thing. But one thing's for sure. Making all these posts assuming bad faith (or "fear", or "conformity", or whatever) on people who type as 4 can lead to a whole hell of a lot of typing confusion and demoralization. I therefore urge readers against this.
OK sorry for the rant. Getting back to my research now.