Enneagram Research Thread

[Pallas]

Well, for my enneagram research, anyhow. It might often wander into more of "Enneagram Musings Thread" territory but mostly I want to get through all the obscurantism and superficiality that's become intertwined with enneagram at the root and makes Stronk types, as well as most people with decent self-respect, not want to touch it with a 39-and-a-half foot pole.

The current goals are:

1. Make enneagram easy to use and recognize, like socionics is when you have a proper understanding of it
2. Get rid of all the agenda-based "spirituality" that has no connection to observable reality, even through intuition (and which I think is often used more to attempt to confine people into roles than anything, and the fact that most people are having difficulty getting at the "typical" typings even with unbearably strong intuition and have to make collages, etc. is because they are largely artificial constructs located in the minds of specific individuals that don't relate to the person's real type), and make it empirically-verifiable (although I'm starting from a highly intuitive perspective). You can't derive what is from what ought to be, and the fact that many if not most sites try to connect these is sort of a giant red flag.
3. Add in theory to be able to classify types based on structural and causal characteristics rather than doing the equivalent of classifying birds based on whether or not they're blue (again, this is a somewhat obscure and difficult article, but I feel like if people care it shouldn't be too hard to understand even if it takes some work and it's still the only thing on this basic theme I've seen anywhere. I'm going to use this metaphor a lot since it's just great) and also to explain and predict behaviors, further characteristics, etc.

I'll repost anything here that I think is valuable. As the entire goal is to overturn old models (but not necessarily all or even most old research) I will keep any "your research is stupid, read this book from the 60s and take it as an entire model unquestioned" down with an iron fist (I foresee at least one threadban ). Constructive criticism with additional observation that happens to reference books from the 60s is a different issue entirely, and any other new research is appreciated (to the extent that it's new).

[Pallas]

Repost of a basic structural analysis of the types (which is at the very least mostly-accurate since it can be easily correlated to some more uncontroversial aspects of mainstream psychology):

Anyways, here's my basic information on the structure of enneagram proper so far:

As I said before, the types are basically discontinuities where something is missing rather than fixations to something that is actually there. Also, as I said before, what seems to be the basic way to identify them so far (whether or not this is actually the cause of them, this is the cause of the apparent aspects of them) is basically cognitive, affective, and conative in psychology, also known as thinking, feeling, and acting, which is pretty intuitive (head, heart, and gut centers, respectively) and what determines the actual apparent behaviors in each one is basically the nature of the discontinuity, which is described as "withdrawn, compliant, assertive" (I think these are rather poor descriptors in terms of their typical associations though).
Withdrawn is 4, 5, and 9, and I noticed a long time ago that each of them has a strong tendency to dissociation, but in rather different ways ("dissociation" in the dissociative identity sense pretty much just is E9, but less stereotypical forms are actually what creates the behaviors in the other two as well). The withdrawn types cut off access to the outside world (keep in mind all of these descriptions actually more or less rely on no one being a pure type) and there is an internal split (which is the dissociation: thinking of oneself as both subject and object, introducing a "meta" element and from there depths, also a tendency to just get lost in those depths). The compliant types are essentially the inverse of the withdrawn types (although based on the names, people would assume that the assertive types are, and this is incorrect), where internal access is cut off and there is an external split (evaluating one thing in the outside world against another, and aligning yourself with it out of compulsion, since you don't have internal access). The assertive types see the internal as uniform and the external as also uniform, so the conflict is in the relation between the person and the outside world, but the person is always held as the good and essentially tries to conquer the world so to speak. The withdrawn and assertive types have in common an "individualistic" orientation valuing the person over the outside world, the assertive and compliant in having an "extravert" orientation in how the individual interacts with the world, and the withdrawn and compliant in having an "introvert" orientation in focusing on the influence of the world on the individual (and from the essentially contradictory descriptions of all 3 groups, the types not in isolation, like in tritypes and wings, never mind instinct stackings, turn into something rather different in behavior than hypothetical isolated types. This is why I think the "types" and "fixes", the latter term which needs to be done away with due to connotations, should be thought of more like morphological characteristics than the colors of bird's feathers, while generally nowadays people are typed very much due to feather-color. I know that article will generally not be well-understood subject-matter-wise but I've never seen the same kind of point brought up elsewhere).

Now, for how these apply to the three centers (which is much more easily-researchable in terms of what they stand for, since they're fairly mainstream in psychology already):

In the heart center, 2 is the compliant type. This manifests by seeing feelings as happening entirely "outside" in how people relate to each other, so the person tries to relate to other people as best as possible, often to the exclusion of themselves, since the compliant types exclude the internal. The assertive type is 3, so they see how they feel as being based on their individual relation to the world, and that drives the going after success, status, admiration, etc. in E3. The withdrawn type is 4, and this is basically meta-feeling that is cut off from the world, so they can decide that they feel good about their despair, or conversely, like in the words of Franz Kafka, "unbearably happy", and this creates the "angstiness", even if E4 isn't actually more "depressed" and unhealthy than any other type (they just have feelings-about-feelings that other types don't so they only focus on what they see as the surface manifestation of this. The downside to depth is that you can easily drown in it, and this goes for all withdrawn types in different ways).

In the head center, E5 is the withdrawn type, so it is basically meta-cognition and thinking about thinking that is cut off from the outside world. This is good since you can handle problems internally before you have to deal with them in the outside world, but the "drowning in the depths" in E5 is that it just decides external problems are no big deal and intellectualizes them to the point of "analysis paralysis" and indifference (since they tend to become more of an object of curiosity than a real issue relating to yourself. This is the "dissociation" in E5, that you are excluded from your problems at least momentarily). E6 doesn't have access to their internal thoughts, so the problems are seen as one thing in the outside world vs. another. All of the problems being real and in the outside world leads to paranoia in the unhealthy levels, and the conflict being seen as completely external leads to the looking for loyalty and an actual ability to not align yourself with something (since you don't have internal access to withdraw into, you are forced into "compliance" with one or another outside thing, hence the name of the compliant types, even if they're not necessarily compliant in the sense of accommodating). E6 has the advantage that it really can't be overwhelmed when there's actual danger - "just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean you aren't right". It is also directly responsible for all real social cohesion (rather than So instinct - I have a whole thing about political stability and instability and the head center. Social cohesion is not sociability, as people can be "social butterflies" who talk to everyone but don't have any stability in terms of groups or relationships. People might want to be 4-5-8, 4-6-8, and 4-7-8 since they're the "most nonconformist", but those three tritypes alone are actually exactly how you got Nazi Germany. Not that having one of those tritypes make you a Nazi. I probably just need to post some of that after this to explain how that works). 7 is the assertive thinking type, so it considers problems and pain as being in how the outside world influences the individual and tries to resolve them that way through removing them and seeking pleasure. This type won't suffer from thinking away problems that actually exist like E5, or from inventing ones that don't like E6, but it is the type that can actually become overwhelmed by problems in cases where E5 and E6 wouldn't, and this is where you get the infamous escapism and addictive tendencies.

The gut center is somewhat interesting in that it seems to be the most directly connected to morality. E1 is stereotypically the moralist, since it's the compliant conative type and sees good and evil as things existing in the outside world which the individual has to align themselves to. E8, on the other hand, is the assertive type, so it sees "good for me" and "bad for me" - what Nietzsche referred to as "master morality" in the whole rather disparaging and sarcastic concept of "master and slave morality". E1 isn't necessarily more compassionate than E8, since the stereotype of E1s going on the Spanish Inquisition is fairly well-known, and E8s can have empathy and extend "good for me" and "bad to me" to "good for particular other people (potentially everyone)" and "bad for particular other people (potentially everyone)", hence the "healthy 8s are protective and maternal/paternal" stereotype. E9 would be like the Taoist system of morality, where you do what's natural and doesn't disrupt "internal harmony", since it is meta-action and the tendency is to see any forced external action at all as bad (the original meaning of the phrase "non-striving" in Taoism).

This doesn't cover tritypes or wings, and I don't think these types really exist independently of tritypes, wings, and instincts or else you end up classifying people as blue and non-blue birds using basically my Devil's Dictionary descriptions rather than anything actually meaningful, but I do think with a good enough intuitive understanding of these principles you can get significantly beyond the blue-bird level even if it's not perfect and complete.

[Pallas]

Basic analysis of the instincts (so far, this seems essentially the same as @Cassandra's interpretation):

Sp - Taking care of your survival, needs, and assets. The typical description is a bit SLI Sp/So-ish and tends to revolve around "constantly fiddling with the temperature in the room and being bothered by certain fabric textures" and "not being able to go without things" that makes it sound literally autistic and/or like a spoiled brat type. The actual examples of Sp-first types, combined with things associated with the individual stackings, make Sp sound a lot less extremely un-flattering. It does heavily relate to the physical body and also the physical world, but also in a - and -ish sense (conceptually) rather than just the - and occasionally -ish senses people give it. It does tend to overall come off ISTx-ish, which will come off as SLI-ish (almost certainly more common) or LSI-ish (rather different flavor-wise and less common, probably more Sp/Sx over Sp/So as well) based on valued functions and individual types and wings (which are related). I think skills, knowledge, etc. largely ties into this as well, although this isn't entirely confirmed. I think enneagram is likely entirely derivable from socionics, and socionics-wise, this relates to an accentuation on ego functions.

Sx - The impulsive desire to go after what you want for sheer gratification. On its own, it has no concern for either Sp-needs ("the sex instinct is the death instinct") or So-acceptability (ditto, to a lesser extent). Sexuality and relationships are a strong desire that don't specifically relate to Sp or So, so they tend to be the most prominent manifestation of this instinct (at least in more sexually-liberated cultures and at certain ages), but not the only ones or the essential definition. Sx is "intense", and Sx-first is very in-your-face while Sx-second is not necessarily less subjectively "intense" but is more held back since it only goes through the first instinct (less forced/more "natural", basically a simmering type intensity vs. blaring). I think socionics-wise, this relates to an accentuation on super-id functions (which are more generally visible than id and also relate to one-on-one relationships more due to being more external overall).

So - Politics, in the broad sense. Influence, status, recognition, comparing in-groups and out-groups and insider individuals and outsider individuals, acceptability and unacceptability, maintaining beneficial relations, whether peaceful or a state of conflict that benefits the individual at others' expense. It isn't social skills (whether just in groups, or in groups as well as one-on-one), sociability, "herd mentality", or interest in current events even though there are clear relationships between those and So (practice makes perfect, and world events = state politics relates to state politics as being a specific kind of interpersonal politics). I think socionics-wise, this relates to an accentuation on super-ego functions.

Now, the syn-flow and contra-flow ideas are fairly simple based on this and essentially a simple logical proposition for each:

Sp/So - Will do whatever's socially useful, as long as they preserve themselves.
So/Sx - Will do whatever they want, as long as it's socially useful.
Sx/Sp - Will preserve themselves, as long as they can do what they want.
Sp/Sx - Will do whatever they want, as long as they preserve themselves.
So/Sp - Will preserve themselves, as long as it's socially useful.
Sx/So - Will do whatever's socially useful, as long as it's what they want.

That doesn't seem quite complete but it makes it easy to see why the first three are more "pro-social" and the last three are more "anti-social", and also the contraflow ones are sort of "unrestrained" in comparison to synflow, "high risk, high reward". The old diagram I made with great/awful colors that were all I had on hand and didn't scan well at all shows some aspect of the structure in a way that makes more clear, provided you know how to work with 3-dimensional surfaces mentally:

Stacking diagram ii.jpg

It's incomplete though, since the synflow stacking essentially appears "naturally" no matter what (so the synflow stackings are all more "balanced") while the contraflow ones draw off synflow and essentially have complete blindspots for what's last while also using the nature of the opposite stacking (this dynamic is rather necessarily to explain Sp-second ones in any way that makes real sense).

[Pallas]

Enneagram types, tritypes, and wings seem entirely derivable from accentuated + and - versions of functions and blocking, but this is difficult to actually work out thoroughly and'll probably be in progress for a while. It does include all the more "counterintuitive" typings that are seen fairly frequently without making it so any sociotype can be any enneagram type, however. Relating the instincts to blocks does bring back in the "fourth instinct" in the essential exact parallels between the instinct theory and the Hindu strivings (I think the instincts were taken from the Hindu strivings somewhere along the lines, actually) as well as Jung's four-fold model that is seen in socionics blocks. I'm just calling the last instinct, currently identified with the Id block (although this might change) "Sn" for null instinct not to make assumptions about what it is or does, although I'd like to confirm that it's "Sr", or the self-realization instinct (which makes it likely enough that it relates to the Super-Id, but the fact that it's essentially constant and not independent of the other three makes me want to put it into Id).

Four Strivings:

At the individual level, some texts of Hinduism outline four āśramas, or stages of life as individual’s dharma. These are:^[67] (1) brahmacārya, the life of preparation as a student, (2) gṛhastha, the life of the householder with family and other social roles, (3) vānprastha or aranyaka, the life of the forest-dweller, transitioning from worldly occupations to reflection and renunciation, and (4) sannyāsa, the life of giving away all property, becoming a recluse and devotion to moksa, spiritual matters.
The four stages of life complete the four human strivings in life, according to Hinduism.^[68] Dharma enables the individual to satisfy the striving for stability and order, a life that is lawful and harmonious, the striving to do the right thing, be good, be virtuous, earn religious merit, be helpful to others, interact successfully with society. The other three strivings are Artha - the striving for means of life such as food, shelter, power, security, material wealth, etc.; Kama - the striving for sex, desire, pleasure, love, emotional fulfillment, etc.; and Moksa - the striving for spiritual meaning, liberation from life-rebirth cycle, self-realisation in this life, etc. The four stages are neither independent nor exclusionary in Hindu Dharma.^[68]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma...stratification

(So = Dharma, Sx = Kama, Sp = Artha, Sr = Moksa - but as I said, I don't want to assume that Sn is Sr until it's somehow validated.)

Jung's model (original and translated):



Personal conscious: Ego
Shadow: Id
Collective conscious: Super-ego
Collective unconscious: Super-id

It seems preferable to switch Sx to Id in this case but this doesn't explain the relational aspect of Sx. The fact that Sn is entirely dependent on all other factors might help explain this later on. Emphasis on "might", I'm not trying to pull a popsci-article here.

[Stellafera]

I like a lot of this! Some criticism:

E6 doesn't have access to their internal thoughts, so the problems are seen as one thing in the outside world vs. another.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

So - Politics, in the broad sense. Influence, status, recognition, comparing in-groups and out-groups and insider individuals and outsider individuals, acceptability and unacceptability, maintaining beneficial relations, whether peaceful or a state of conflict that benefits the individual at others' expense.

Politics is more of an effect than a cause. I think So-instinct ultimately is the desire to belong and feel like a part of the tribe. Awareness of politics, who's the in-group, etc. come with that obsession.

I disagree entirely on contra-flow being more "unrestrained"; I actually think it's the opposite. My thinking goes that syn-flow is basically the instinct flow that best backs up the dominant function. For example, Sp/So, as you mentioned, maintains good social relations and groupings in order to surround themselves with a foundation that the all-or-nothing of Sx doesn't provide. Consequentially, syn-flow types tend to come across as the unbridled version of their dominant instinct because everything feeds back into it. So/Sx, for example, is your classic "join every club be involved in everything stay up till 2 am so that you can CONNECT" variation of So-dominance.

Contra-flow on the other hand has a sort of self-cannibalizing factor because the goals of the dominant and secondary instinct pull in two directions. So/Sp, for example, wants to feel like they belong and feel a part of things, but they also have a Sp desire to stabilize themselves as an independent entity and pull back some aspect of themselves away from other people, to keep some aspect of themselves in its integrity rather than investing it in other people. This behavior creates an odd push-pull that makes contra-flow types the "outsider" of their dominant instinct and leads to the whole critical, countercultural stereotype they're known for.

[Pallas]

I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

E6 = thinking is something that exists entirely externally in the world with no internal reference ("compliant"), so it's weighing one thing vs. another. Of course the wings alter all of the types and two different wings can look quite different, but that's the basic dynamic.

Politics is more of an effect than a cause. I think So-instinct ultimately is the desire to belong and feel like a part of the tribe. Awareness of politics, who's the in-group, etc. come with that obsession.

Yeah, I just tended to consider "inside vs. outside" as part of politics. Perhaps your wording is better.

I disagree entirely on contra-flow being more "unrestrained"; I actually think it's the opposite...

Considering how instinct stackings are supposed to work, that's probably true, but in an odd way (if you look at the example threads, and the "contraflow subverts the last instinct" examples in some of them. The synflow ones seem to just not use it, so subverting would just be a sort of "devalued" use, like a Role or Demonstrative function in socionics). The rest of what you said seems important as well. I really have to figure out how to "complete" my silly diagram better (even though at least the one I made is far better than the standard one, which just seems to exist to look interesting since it illustrates absolutely nothing that text descriptions don't already).

[Pallas]

Anyways, what I want to call cookbook enneagram is really hurting everyone, since it's basically just taking random type descriptions and combining them. I figured out what the instincts are doing is modifying the main type, rather than adding to it. Sx 6 is the most obvious example, since people tend to focus on it more than any of the other countertypes because "it doesn't look even vaguely 6-ish on the surface!" (even though I think a lot of the other countertypes can be just as confusing, if not more, since they seem at least somewhat more uncommon and people don't have an example to know them when they see them). If cookbook descriptions really worked, Sx 6 would just be a typical E6 description combined with a typical Sx description, which would be something like someone who wants stability and certainty in relationships and runs away from ones that don't have that. But that's not really what you see at all, which is why people tend to be so confused by it.

Sx 6 diagram.png


Sx is the vertical dimension, and E6 is the horizontal. The cookbook descriptions that are just E6 and Sx are the light purple area, but what really properly explains the Sx 6 dynamic is the dark purple area. In other words, it's constrained or filtered, rather than something added on (to get really technical, intersection vs. union).

[Chae]

In short, when you read up e.g. 8 and SP separately it won't help, even mistypes are likely. So Naranjo is again recommendable with his variant descriptions.

A basic way of figuring it out is through morphing core fear and instinct. 3 SX for instance is Fear of Failure in Relationships.

Take a quote of me earlier from today, I'm the living example.

To me, relationships are plain effort effort effort, I get even more invested and less mild because things are at stake

[Stellafera]

E6 = thinking is something that exists entirely externally in the world with no internal reference ("compliant"), so it's weighing one thing vs. another. Of course the wings alter all of the types and two different wings can look quite different, but that's the basic dynamic.

Oh, yes, that's accurate then. In practice 6s have to use their internal reference all the time or they wouldn't be able to make decisions, but the type tends to reach for some sort of external authority where possible and considers it more "trustworthy" than their own intuition.

Your definition of compliance feels more akin to how I'd define the attachment triad, though. 3/6/9 all let the outside world shape them to excessive degrees. Compliant triad to me is more of a tendency to moralize everything; 1/2/6 all have overactive consciences that they fall compliant to like a meek little kid under a strict schoolmarm. 6 combines the two by taking into account way too much of the outside world and reactions of other people to inform the "shoulds" of their lives.

[Pallas]

Oh, yes, that's accurate then. In practice 6s have to use their internal reference all the time or they wouldn't be able to make decisions, but the type tends to reach for some sort of external authority where possible and considers it more "trustworthy" than their own intuition.

Your definition of compliance feels more akin to how I'd define the attachment triad, though. 3/6/9 all let the outside world shape them to excessive degrees. Compliant triad to me is more of a tendency to moralize everything; 1/2/6 all have overactive consciences that they fall compliant to like a meek little kid under a strict schoolmarm. 6 combines the two by taking into account way too much of the outside world and reactions of other people to inform the "shoulds" of their lives.

Attachment and compliant both have a lot of influence from the outside world but the dynamic is different (E6 has both, which is where the "duality" thing comes from). The moralizing is correct but that's a result of other underlying processes. Really all the enneagram terms need re-naming to make them clearer or at least a quick explanation or definition of what the term really means since it isn't the standard usage (which is extremely common with technical terms, especially in mathematics, philosophy, anthropology, and extremely abstract fields of knowledge generally, but if you never define them clearly, that's just obscurantism that does no one any good).

Really the issue is just that people aren't using clearly-defined ways to talk about things. It reminds me of this study correlating personality traits to film preferences, and the people doing the study were all like "How do action film fans score significantly higher than the general population on both Openness and Conscientiousness? Those correlate negatively everywhere else! It's a mystery..." But if you look at what action films are about, they're about going on adventures and doing things, aside from the violence. Conscientiousness includes both a sense of dutifulness and a desire to accomplish things in the same construct since the theme is "taking care of business" without any other considerations, even though the motivations are completely different (a sort of superego obligation vs. ego desire), and obviously people watching Indiana Jones are going to score high on the latter but not the former. (Ahh, blue birds yet again, but this time in mainstream psychology...)

[Pallas]

In short, when you read up e.g. 8 and SP separately it won't help, even mistypes are likely. So Naranjo is again recommendable with his variant descriptions.

A basic way of figuring it out is through morphing core fear and instinct. 3 SX for instance is Fear of Failure in Relationships.

Take a quote of me earlier from today, I'm the living example.

Yeah. I think we need more examples really, because even though Naranjo is doing better than average on this, it's basically just slightly-more-complicated cookbook descriptions, with a lot of "X can also look like Y!" that just muddies things. I do think it really needs more art, literature, music, cinema, historical etc. examples to be honest, and less rote descriptions. But people should also be careful with that, because unless you're at least somewhat well-informed in whatever it is you're trying to classify, it just tends to be making things up according to what you think should be the case, and there's so much of this already that it makes me cringe (for an actual example I've seen, someone illustrating E6 with Hamlet, and saying "well, everyone should read Hamlet as if he's cowering and afraid on the 'To be, or not to be?' line because he's a scaredy E6!" No, it's always read clearly and energetically because that's how it's supposed to be, and if you aren't actually into Shakespeare, don't use Shakespeare to illustrate anything).