Misusing Personality Systems
Myers-Briggs. Enneagram. Socionics. Big Five. You’ve likely heard of all of these personality theories, and I’m sure countless others. Once someone goes down the rabbit hole of typology, it’s usually not long before they start branching out into other theories on the subject. This has led to a pet peeve of mine: using one theory to skew the analysis of another.
Each personality theory has it’s own function. I’m certainly not saying that there’s anything wrong with other theories. This article is no way, shape, or form intended to criticize any of the varying personality theories. I’m not saying that they don’t have value, or that one has more value than the other. Get value where you can find value. To each his own. If you find a certain theory to be useful, that’s great. If you find a combination of theories to be useful, that’s great too. However, I often see people pull all of their newfound knowledge into the varying theories together in the wrong way.
The main culprit (from what I’ve seen) tends to be Enneagram.
Truthfully, I don’t know a ton about Enneagram. I’ve done very brief, research into it so that I can understand what people mean when they mention a specific type. Everyone seems to get into it and then toss the type numbers around, so it seemed logical to be able to track the lingo. I’ve never quite been able to figure out my own type in the system (5? 3? 9? 8?), but that was never really my concern. My primary interest has always been in the cognitive functions, and I’ll likely never get too involved with Enneagram. But with all that being said, here’s my gripe where Enneagram and the 16 Types are concerned: I’ve noticed a tendency for people to use Enneagram to make someone (real person or character) fit one of the 16 types that they wouldn’t otherwise fit.
What do I mean?
Well, it tends to go something like this. A person is discussing, for instance, a fictional character. Let’s say that they’re arguing that this character is an INTP. They make various arguments or statements about how the character is an INTP (which may or may not be valid), but then also note that the character has excellent Fe, which is unusual for being an INTP. However, they then account for this oddity by explaining that the character is an Enneagram 9. In other words, they use this other, completely separate theory to account for the discrepancies in the character’s supposed INTP type. You may still see nothing wrong with this, and theoretically there isn’t, if it’s purely used as a supplemental. But, that’s typically not the case. Quite often I see people use the character’s supposed Enneagram type as evidence for their Myers-Briggs type, which quite frankly, is completely invalid.
Each system should be used to evaluate a person/character independently.
If a character’s type cannot be proven and accounted for solely via the cognitive functions, then perhaps the argument itself is not sound. People have this tendency to unintentionally try to shove a square peg in a round hole, so to speak, rather than actually following the evidence. We all have personal biases and preconceived notions. Sometimes these get in the way, and blind us to reality. Enneagram can be used to further define one’s type, not alter current evidence to fit one’s preconceived notion of what each type should act like or is capable of.
If a character’s Fe seems unusually good for an INTP, then you shouldn’t be overeager to jump into Enneagram to confirm that potential bias. Enneagram is irrelevant to your case. First, ask yourself why the character can’t have high Fe? What’s making you assume dominant Ti? Is it anecdotal or actually solid cognitive evidence? Is it perhaps an intelligent or analytical IXFJ? Is the character truly showing Ne/Si evidence rather than Se/Ni? Evaluate the character’s cognitive functions within the 16 personalities system and order the functions based on strength and/or range of usage. What’s the character’s weak point? Granted, if you’re dealing with a fictional character, and the character isn’t fleshed out well enough, there may not be an obvious weak point. At that point, the character may be impossible to type accurately, so try not to be too obstinate about your position with others who disagree. Fiction shouldn’t be taken too seriously (another pet peeve of mine, but I digress).
Of course, I guess the real issue doesn’t lie in fiction, but rather when someone is trying to force themselves to fit that one type they so desperately desire so they turn to Enneagram to account for it. Bad. Stop it. Be real with yourself. People say all the time that no type is better than the other. Do you actually believe that? Could you accept being one of the “lesser” types? Get off of your high horse and consider all of the types for real. All other systems aside, what truly fits? If you’re talking about the 16 types, Enneagram should have no place in your answer.
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I kinda agree with you. Enneagram is really interesting, but that’s all: it’s full of arbitrary nonsense. Here’s some good points explaining why. Btw, we can apply the author’s arguments to cog functions as well :p
(https://www.personalitycafe.com/threads/the-enneagram-is-bs.755426/)
Well, I’m not trying to knock Enneagram’s credibility. I just get tired of the systems get mixed in the wrong way.
I know! That’s the reason behind the “kinda” lol
Gotcha, my bad, lol
I’m a huge fan of enneagram, but you’re completely right (from my point of view) that each typing needs to hold up on its own in the system being used. Too much crossover leads to sloppy thinking that doesn’t get to the root that each system is attempting to describe. Very interesting article, thanks for posting it.
Yeah I definitely agree with all this. I’ve seen people use the function stack as is alongside concepts from both socionics and enneagram to justify certain types. You get bizzare assertions like IxTP 9s have good Fe and IxFJ 5s have good Ti etc..Then people apply socionics concepts on top so you have INTP-ILIs who are completely different to INTP-LIIs and so on..I feel like a lot of this can be addressed by simply accepting that even amongst the same type people have varying levels of development which will result in people of the same type sometimes appearing very different. Addressing these differences by trying to stack 2 or 3 methods of typology on top of one another makes things unnecessarily complicated.
From everything that I’ve read and learned MBTI is about how we take in and process information, while the enneagram is about what we are afraid of and how we deal with that fear.
The problem I see, and I could be wrong, is that a lot of people want to be a rare type. Personally, whether I am a rare type or a common type is not the point of this, that I see. It is the journey that is important to me and I see this as a journey of self discovery.
“Finding my type, ” whether it is MBTI or Enneagram, isn’t the important part. Sure, I’d like to be sure of my type, but it’s the inner work that is more important to me. Most days I can see the functions I use, or at least some of them, but I have never been an open person, and describing myself and thought processes is not an easy thing for me, but then again neither is seeing those things in myself either.
As I said before, it is the journey that is more important. Where I end up, that is for me to discover, though honestly, I would rather be a common type.
This is actually a really good outlook to have. Completely agree with you.
Somewhat tangentially related to the post above but you guys pointed out how an analytical IxFJ may be mistaken for an IxTP. That does appear to be the case for a lot of characters (such as Tails from Sonic) but there also appears to be a lot of cases where IxTPs get typed as IxFJs for showing minimal levels of social competence or empathy (Kiritsugu Emiya and Mitsuki are both typed as INFJs by popular consensus). It seems to be common for the two types to get mixed up a lot so what kind of things would you look out for to differentiate?
Fe will be a go to “weapon” or “tool” for a high Fe user. Inferior Fe users won’t be as good with it, so you shouldn’t see it as much. So, this means that high Fe users tend to be more concerned with pleasing others and gaining their admiration in order to gain their support and loyalty. You’ll see more of an appeal to emotions and empathy in their arguments.
IXFJs should struggle more with spur of the moment. Obviously, an IXFJ who is trained can handle situations more on the fly, and in the inverse, an IXTP who is trained may have learned the value of strategy and forethought. However, there should be more of an eagerness or excitement for improvisation from an IXTP, versus an IXFJ who would be more hesitant or wary.
I think you’re right about using type in one model to justify a type in another system – this seems like bad science. However, assuming rigorous practice separation of the models, I think they can be considered in conjunction with each other as a means of determining intra-type differences. I’ve noticed, for example, at least two distinct subtypes of INTPs with systematic differences between the subtypes. Once already determined as INTPs, I see no problem with using the enneagram to classify these differences as pertaining enneagram 5 and 9 INTPs.
I also agree mixing and matching systems to best fit your preconceived notions is a bad way of typing. One should be consistent with which system they favour.
Regarding fictional characters, I’ve always thought the idea of typing them was absurd. The idea behind typology is that there’s some underlying system being tracked relating to the human condition. Fictional characters, being imaginative creations, are not birthed of these systematic patterns typology assumes to track in some way. It therefore makes zero sense to try to type them. Writing this out sounds silly because it should be obvious, but anyway…
I was reading your article about Accelerator and found something pretty interesting lol “However, Accelerator demonstrates no obvious desire to control his environment”
You’re right, for sure, but what’s funny about it is that people usually type Accelerator as an 8w7, one of the two most controlling core fears alongside 8w9. I know that if we only lead with core fears/desires and not related behaviors, all 8w7s want is freedom and control over their own lives, but all these traits normally come along with a need to assert their will over others – at least this is what ppl in typology community (usually) say. Nevertheless, it’s interesting how everyone has a different way to look at the same thing.