here's the problem here...

Posted by isaac on March 15, 2001 at 08:57:06:

In Reply to: You're talkin' 5s to a 5 on the 5 board... posted by RoTtEn ApPlE on March 15, 2001 at 02:12:23:

myers briggs is not a generic personality typology of the sort that the enneagram is. your mb type can change depending on situation, your egram type cannot. mb type tells which problem-solving techniques you are likely to use, the egram tells how you think and why you act the way you do. you can get your mb type from a questionairre with really great accuracy. the best egram tests are only about 50-75% accurate.

it's not like comparing apples and oranges, more like comparing motor oil and Wednesday.

ra is totally on with the "expert" phenomenon. always take everything anyone says or writes with a grain of salt. anyone can write a book. there is no standard for credentials in this field, like there is in science or even philosophy. plenty of egram authors are complete morons. others (like riso) are fairly on, but tend to project pretty connections onto the enneagram that aren't really there (and aren't *useful* in understanding people!)

the "out of touch with..." account that riso and hudson give is trite and useless. 6es are not "out of touch with thinking." that's silly. what does that even MEAN? first of all, "thinking" is never defined by riso! and even if it WAS, it's a gross oversimplification. thinking for a 6 is radically different from thinking for a 5. and 3s are no more or less out of touch with their emotions than 5s or 1s. (9s are very out of touch with anger, tho, gotta give him that.) the thing that separates good egram theory from bad egram theory, imnsho, is how useful it is for understanding people. riso's account is completely pointless; the sort of silly useless imaginary theorizing that has no bearing on the real world and whose only value is in being symmetrical and pretty. it seems like he bases it totally on the shape and not at all on people or types.

i've never known a 4 to under-emphasize feeling, unless you've completely redefined all those terms to mean, in effect, "being extremely consious of every feeling and thinking that each feeling is extremely important." of course, i don't see how "under-empasize" could possibly mean that :) 4s are to their emotional thinking as 5s are to their intellectual thinking. it's a rough analogy that doens't always hold, but it's good as a rule of thumb. another way to put it is that 4s are to their social capacities as 5s are to their power capacities. for a better explaination of this, see Re: Thoughts 4 vs 9 .

so anyway, wrt mb type...
i agree with ra in this pretty much, with some slight deviation. (and, ra, i think this is basically what you're trying to get at.) certainly, various mb types will (in *general*) be preferred by certain egram types. i, as a 54, am not *likely* to approach a problem with my heart and hands before my brain gets involved. however, in certain situations, i'll do exactly that, for whatever reasons. a good example might be impulsively throwing paint on a canvas, as a means to vent my bottled-up emotions, perhaps even in the midst of a "snap" in my structured objective approach to life. for that moment, perhaps i'm an infp, when usually i'm an intj. or what if my desire for entertainment and acclaim, along with some healthy confidence (very 5ish) coupled with the right atmosphere, leads me to get up on stage and tell jokes. am i then an E rather than an I? since mb type is supposed to really reflect your "average" problem solving technique, one could say that this doesn't *really* affect things. but what if i was a performance artist, and did this sort of thing every day? (in fact, i know a 54 who makes a living as a juggler. interesting fellow. remarkably outgoing for a 5.)

surely, certain configurations of mb type and egram type are highly unlikely, simply because the base personalities *tend* to lend themselves to certain problem solving techniques. i think it's just about impossible to say what someone's egram type is based solely on their mb type, but it may provide some added snippet of info. in my opinion, not much more than knowing what music or movies a person likes. certainly a lot less than knowing the types of their friends.

anyway, eye of the night, you mentioned that you are a 5, because you are gifted with a big intellect. while most 5s would like to think that they are smart, it's hardly enough to go on. in fact, this one trait is commonly what 45s site in claiming to be 54s. "well, i'm smart, must be a 5." plenty of 5s are idiot. sure, it's a painful tragedy when that happens, and you gotta respect them for trying, but it happens. but most people will claim to be smart if you ask them, and they'll usually be right, in some fashion, becasue most people are smart in some way or another. being smart does not make you a 5. 5ness has a lot more to do with your motivations for doing things, where you place value, what you are focused on, and so on. a big intellect is just a common side-effect of a performance obsession, repressed emotions, and internal focus. and even if all 5s were smart, certainly not all smart people are 5s.
5->s, s, therefor 5; invalid argument.

a problem commonly arises, i've seen, in trying to apply mb typology to arenas where it does not belong; areas where egram is much more suited to the task at hand.

isaac

Follow Ups:

• Well, I tend to disagree... Eye of the Night 14:49:25 03/15/01 (5)
  • that's cause you're a 45 isaac 16:18:11 03/15/01 (4)
    • You've misinterpreted a lot... Eye of the Night 17:48:11 03/15/01 (3)
      • 4-5 confusion isaacthe54 11:02:02 03/16/01 (1)
        • Re: 4-5 confusion Eye of the Night 16:48:16 03/17/01 (0)
      • Re: You've misinterpreted a lot... bri 08:02:49 03/16/01 (0)

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