Enneagram Biochemical Opposites

[FFF]

Could you imagine that type 1 and type 5 are opposites?
How about type 2 and type 4?
Type 7 and type 8?
Type 6 and type 9?

That last one makes a lot of sense if you ask me since I'm a type 9 with a type 6 mom.

Recently, I posted a video I really liked, but nobody else seemed to care about. It involved a lady in a class lecture pointing out her theory on the biopsychological basis of the "nine point personality system" (enneagram). She pointed out how there are three systems in the brain that run off of three different chemicals: norepinephrine (noradrenaline), serotonin, and dopamine. Using the levels high, medium, and low, you would actually get 27 types. The levels of the first two, N and S, determine the enneagram type. Norepinephrine has to do with cognition and how much thinking you do when idle, and serotonin has to do with a sense of well-being. Dopamine has to do with behavior. Her explanation for the type 6 seems to make a lot of sense. Type 6 is high in N and low in S; therefore, they sit around thinking about every possible thing that could go wrong. Anyway, after acquiring a list of the levels of each type, I decided to find the opposites with the opposite of medium being medium.

OPPOSITES
# N S
1 L M
5 H M

2 M H
4 M L

3 M M

6 H L
9 L H

7 H H
8 L L

 

[FFF]

I found this list with some searching, and it actually attributes dopamine levels to the 9 types, but that leaves 18 types unaccounted for. I currently can't find much to explain this lack, so here it is if you wanna see. At the bottom is the list involved in the triangle and the shape connecting the other numbers besides 3, 6, 9.

# N S D
8 L L H
- - - M
- - - L

- - - H
- - - M
9 L H L

- - - H
1 L M M
- - - L

- - - H
2 M H M
- - - L

3 M M H
- - - M
- - - L

- - - H
- - - M
4 M L L

- - - H
- - - M
5 H M L

- - - H
6 H L M
- - - L

7 H H H
- - - M
- - - L

|
3 M M H
|
6 H L M
|
9 L H L
|

|
1 L M M
|
7 H H H
|
5 H M L
|
8 L L H
|
2 M H M
|
4 M L L

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Hmmm... In terms of manifested behavior, Ones and Fives are opposite in some ways, such as the fact that stress makes Fives nihilistic while it drives Ones to fundamentalism. But the two types have a number of similarities, too. It's sort of half opposed, half the same.

Sevens and Eight being opposites? That doesn't seem correct at all.

 

[FFF]

Hmmm... In terms of manifested behavior, Ones and Fives are opposite in some ways, such as the fact that stress makes Fives nihilistic while it drives Ones to fundamentalism. But the two types have a number of similarities, too. It's sort of half opposed, half the same.

Sevens and Eight being opposites? That doesn't seem correct at all.

Yeah, that's a tough one. I wish I could find out more info on this whole topic, but I can't at the moment.

 

[FFF]

Hmmm... In terms of manifested behavior, Ones and Fives are opposite in some ways, such as the fact that stress makes Fives nihilistic while it drives Ones to fundamentalism. But the two types have a number of similarities, too. It's sort of half opposed, half the same.

Sevens and Eight being opposites? That doesn't seem correct at all.

Another weird thing is that I score highest in 9 and second highest in 5. In a lot of ways I can act like a 5. As far as N/S the 9 is L H and the 5 is H M. So according to this lady, I'd have to somehow bounce from low N to high N with a shift in S from high to medium.

 

[Ezra]

No types are opposites, because there are no dichotomies to make them opposite. However, there is a page on the Enneagram Institute website about science doing brain scans to show that the levels of natural drugs in the brain are different in each type. There are three kinds of drugs if I remember correctly. Perhaps your answer lies there.

 

[Athenian200]

I'm not sure I'd consider 5 and 1 opposites. But I would be interested to know where you got the correlations of brain chemical levels to enneatype. Is it from a reliable source?

I can see some of the associations, but not all of them. Perhaps the impact of chemical interactions would explain some of the parts I don't get.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

No types are opposites, because there are no dichotomies to make them opposite. However, there is a page on the Enneagram Institute website about science doing brain scans to show that the levels of natural drugs in the brain are different in each type. There are three kinds of drugs if I remember correctly. Perhaps your answer lies there.

In reality, everything is a composition of binary variables. You just have to know how to sort it down.