The big ol' bowl of Enneagram

[Magic Poriferan]

Originally Posted by Eric B

Thanks!!!
Whoah! Now those look too close to mine for comfort!
You said "slightly modified from anything on a site", "customized". I don't get that. Do you mean they were not copied from anywhere, but were customized by being made from scratch instead? Or that they were copied, and then "customized" by being slightly modified (i.e. colored in)?

I got from mine from another Wikipedian, who created four of them for the "Four Temperaments" article. They matched pictures of carved masks representing the temperaments. The shy looking one (in the upper left) was Phlegmatic. The person released them to the public under the Wiki GNU license. So I copied them, and I have seen other sites copy some of them, and if you copied them, it is OK.

Yes, I found the same page, with the same image. I changed them by moving/making faces and coloring them in.

Originally Posted by Eric B

So I took them for both my Five Temperament article, as well as my sites, and redesignated the shy looking one as the fifth temperament, and created the one with the straight mouth and eyes as the true Phlegmatic. I also created the "inbetween" ones with either the eyes OR mouth straight (but not both), which represent what we call the "Phlegmatic Blends". These lie between the five main temperaments.
This was all done about 3 years ago.

That is incredibly similar to what I did. I did that almost verbatim.

Originally Posted by Eric B

So what order of Enneagram types does your image follow? What is what on there? (I know it can't simply be in numerical order, because the happy-but-shy one in the upper left can't be #1. That table is just like mine, but flipped diagonally.

Well, the faces correspond to my own analysis, which, as you can see, was somewhat different from the factor models you were analyzing, though I had read about them before developing my own theory.

In my image, we could say that they eyes refer to situation management, and the mouth refers to emotional response. So, corresponding to my variables and values...

Angry eyes = Active/Aggressive
Straight eyes = Passive/Evasive
Sad eyes = Reactive/Supportive

Happy mouth = Projective
Straight mouth = Detached
Sad mouth = Temperamental

Now then, if we use that guide to corelate the faces with the Enneagram types, the order is as follows:

Upper left = Two
Upper middle = One
Upper right = Six
Middle Right = Four
Lower Right = Eight
Lower Middle = Three
Lower Left = Seven
Middle left = Nine
Complete Middle = Five

As I pointed out, the numbering convention that was originally used in the Enneagram seems to have no rationale behind it. I was rather disappointed to find that out, but we move on.

It is of some interest, though, that as I had said, I showed the picture to people and had them assign the type based on appearance. It did not entirely match my official assigment.

The Two, Six, Four, Eight, and Seven were typically given to the faces that I had given them to. However, the lower middle was usually made the One, the complete middle was usually made the Nine, the middle left was made the Three, and the upper middle was made the Five.

I unfortunately had only a small sample of people who actually knew the Enneagram, but the consistency of their pick was rather striking. It was too small however for me to do a follow up test, to see if the color of the faces affected peoples' choices. I was not in a position to find enough people that hadn't already taken the first test.

[Eric B]

So your arrangement agrees with mine on 8, 3, 7. Only I have them on the right edge instead of the bottom.

The 6 I matched with Supine as the upper left, which you're saying is 2. Those two types I see are similar, but since the 2 seems a bit more ambiverted, I give it the straight eyes like the left middle, which you're saying is 9.
The 6 is not thought of as "introverted", but its "fearful" behavior (in comparison to the 2) matches what in FIRO and APS is associated with low expressed behavior. Hence, the "shy/sad" eyes for the 6. But then you have that and the sad mouth for the 6 as well, in the upper right. Again, their nervousness we would associate with high wanted behavior, which would be a smiling mouth. Enneagram focuses more on negative traits, so I believe you do not see the more positive, "friendly" qualities of the type. But the negative qualities clearly match our fifth temperament Supine (and FIRO's "Inhibited Individual").

Meanwhile, the 9 I know is considered introverted, as well as agreeable. I guess it would have the general "amiable" image of the middle left, though the features don't match E/R. But the 9 is clearly Phlegmatic, which we considered ambiverted and inbetween people/task-oriented. I also see the 6 called an "ambivert", but the two types are "ambiverted in two different ways. The Supine expresses as an introvert and responds as an extrovert. That mixture can be considered a type of "ambiversion") (And I believe it is what give me my I/E ambiguities). The Phlegmatic expresses as an introvert or extrovert at times, and also responds as an introvert or extrovert. They can basically "take people or leave 'em". Others apparently see this, if they also thought the center face was 9.

The 5 I see as very critical (like the 1 and 8, as you acknowledge), so it should have the frowning mouth. And it is introverted, so it should have the sad eyes. The 1 and 4 are reversed. 1, 4 and 5 are very Melancholy. It seems the 1 has the Melancholy's perfectionism, the 4 has its "artisticness" and the 5 has its analyticalness. But the 5 seems the most introverted and directive together. The 1 is directive, but not as introverted, and the 4 is introverted, but not as directive.

Of course, you're using those other factors (instead of E/R), which I would have to analyze more.
One version of Enneagram theory that seems to support the E/R analysis to some extent, is The Enneagram: a Journey of Self Discovery (1984) by Maria Beesing, Bob Nogosek, and Pat O'Leary group the Enneagram styles according to Dependent Types (2,6,7), Aggressive Types (8,3,1), and Withdrawing Types (5,9,4). The Dependent types all have the high responsive score, just as we have them. The Aggressive types all towards the lower right corner [of the FIRO/APS matrix], with moderate to high expressive behavior, and moderate to low responsive behavior; representing "extraversion" and "directiveness". The Withdrawing types are low in expression in two cases, and much lean towards the lower left, conveying a sense of "introversion" and "directiveness". (Again, the Phlegmatic counterpart (9) is also considered "low E" as it is in many other instruments).

[Martoon]

I just took a few of these enneagram tests, and the one that made the most sense to me (in terms of both the questions and results) was the SimilarMinds test.

Type 1 Perfectionism  	||||||  		30%
Type 2 	Helpfulness 	|||||||||||| 		45%
Type 3 	Image Focus 	|||||||||| 		31%
Type 4 	Hypersensitivity|||||||||| 		40%
Type 5 	Detachment 	|||||||||||||||||||| 	85%
Type 6 	Anxiety 	|||||||||| 		32%
Type 7 	Adventurousness |||||| 			28%
Type 8 	Aggressiveness 	|||| 			15%
Type 9 	Calmness 	|||||||||||||||||| 	77%

All of those percentages seem accurate to me, based on what I know about myself. And of course, the NT in me is wondering why 30% is represented by 6 bars, and both 31% and 40% are represented by 10 bars.

And I agree that there doesn't seem to be much reason to the restriction that wings be adjacent to core type. I definitely see myself as a 5w9. And I don't see why Detachment and Calmness should be that far from each other.

[dissonance]

Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||||||||| 74%
Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||||||||| 74%
Type 3 Image Focus |||||||||||||||| 67%
Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||||||| 67%
Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||| 55%
Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||| 44%
Type 4 Hypersensitivity |||||| 25%
Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||| 21%
Type 7 Adventurousness |||| 17%

these scores seem pretty different from what i had imagined. i think my current assessment of type 9w1 holds true, although i've changed my mind every few months...

[Magic Poriferan]

Originally Posted by Martoon

And I agree that there doesn't seem to be much reason to the restriction that wings be adjacent to core type. I definitely see myself as a 5w9. And I don't see why Detachment and Calmness should be that far from each other.

What's more perplexing is that Eight (belligerence) is next to Nine (conflict avoidance). That's one of the things that first conjured my doubt about the wings.

[Eric B]

Well, again, if you look at 9 as the pure Phlegmatic and thus completely ambiverted (both in expression and responsiveness or people/task orientation), then it is in the center of, and thus close to all of the temperaments. Still, as you noted, you would expect types like 1 or 3 to be next to 8 first.
But this would be to match the E/R scale, but as we know, the Enneagram theorists were not using E/R. The fact that you and others noted this about the 1 and 8 being next to 9 shows that E/R is the most "natural" matrix to map the types on. (And those who do compare them to E/R behavior generally see the 9 as low E/high R, which would make it diametrically opposite of 8. But again, I would say it was dead center).

[Magic Poriferan]

In general, I take an approach that does not regard any type as being moderate or centered. I contest that no Enneagram type represents a symetrical relation to all others as the phlegmatic temperament would.

The system I put together was based on the notion that while each variable had three values, none of those values are simply in the middle of a continuum. Rather than having two sides with one value inbetween, I would depict my variables as triangles, with three points equally different from each other.

If such a system is followed, then neautrality cannot exist, and as an added note, the Nine and the Eight would indeed be very different.

[Eric B]

Ok, so you're talking about
Angry eyes = Active/Aggressive
Straight eyes = Passive/Evasive
Sad eyes = Reactive/Supportive

Happy mouth = Projective
Straight mouth = Detached
Sad mouth = Temperamental

In my scheme, the straight mouth or eyes represented "moderation", since their position was basically "inbetween" that of happy or sad. In yours, and the Horney Scales used by Chou and others (Away/Against/Toward), I knew the "middle" point was not "moderate, and that was one major difference with the FIRO-based system. So yes, it is more of a triangular scale. I guess passive/evasive or detached would fit those facial features, even though they're not "moderate" inbetween those other points you mentioned.

It's kind of hard to picture a matrix where the factors are two dimensional rather than one dimensional. That would technically be a four dimensional system, except that the two dimensions of the factors are based on a 60 degree angle instead of right angles.

Still, I don't fully know what some of those mean. The 9 is "projective" instead of "detached"?

[dissonance]

can you guys explain what the variables are that you're talking about?

[Eric B]

The variables Magic is referring to I believe are the ones that he earlier printed, and I just copied in small type, with the descriptions of the mouth and eyes.

the ones I use are "expressive" and "responsive" behavior, which both can be low, moderate or high. These scales measure stuff like extroversion/introversion or directing/informing. We're discussing how to measure the Enneagtram types by the respective scales. My framework thus gives possible correlations between MBTI and Enneagram. Magic's, I'm not sure, as I don't understand those facets yet, or if he maps them to the 16 types.