my longstanding low opinion of enneagram tests (oops... this one is real)

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: : lemme just say..... : i really : REALLY : hate enneagram tests. : i hate them in teh same way that i hate people who don't know anything about quantum mechanics and try to misapply a mishearing of the theory to defend esp. enneagram tests just promote a laziness on the part of the student. and, since they don't test 5s very well, generally, and usually they test 6es absolutely terribly, they turn off a whole host of possible enneagram fans in their first encounter with the system. : every test is flawed, even the really really good ones. the only good enneagram test (which STILL has some degree of error) is sitting down with a person that you have observed and talked to and discussing what types they may be by asking them openended questions. : ie.... : "ok, so i've noticed youre really a perfectionist about a lot of things." : .oO(maybe a 1?) : "yeah, it's cause i'm really scared that something will go wrong..." : .oO(ooh... could be a 6/5, would explain the resistance to authority.) : "i also am obsessively into math and physics." : .oO(5 or 6/5 pretending...) : etc... : this test works even better if someone has read a book on the enneagram and can pose their own theories and debate yours. after all, i know at least two people who read the book and then thought they were their wing type. (not surprising, since most of us kinda wish we were more like our wing in a lot of circumstances.) : teh sad thing about crappy tests is that people take the test, and say "oh, tha'ts my type, i guess." then they read about the type, and say, "wow, this is nothing at all like me. i guess the enneagram sucks ass." when, as we all know, the engrm is really an extremely insightful entertaining and USEFUL system, in so many ways and on so many levels. : anyway, chris, i'd guess that youre a 54. you're intp, and i've noticed that lots of 5/4s are. you also tested high as a 5 then high as a 4. like i mentioned, we often would like to think of ourselves as being a lot like our wing. if someone asks me if i'm passionate adn artistic, i say "oh, hell yeah!", thinking of my 4ish side, but really i'm a 5. our wing is what we present, particularly when we are under any sort fo stress. it's the self wefeel we should be. the enneagram is a great tool for me, cause it showed me that being a 4 is stupid, since it entails awhole lot of crap that i'd NEVER want kickin around in my head. now i don't pretend to be a 4, i pretend to be an 8. much more fun, but a lot harder. : if you're not a 54, i'd say maybe unhealthy 19 (will show up on lots of tests as 5) or perhaps a 45, tho that's pretty out there. only you can decide. a good referrence book on personality types is Don Richard Riso's "personality types." it's got a lot of jungian/myers-briggs/proto-personality-psychobabble-type crap, which is just dumb, but the actual description of types in that book is the best that i've seen in any book so far. : : have fun, adn don't let a crappy test turn you away from the enneagram. you sound 5-ish, so even if you're an idiot, you're on the right track, and we need more good thinkers thinking more effectively in this society :) : isaac the 5/4 : : There are two different versions of the Enneagram test on this site, and I took them both. The results of both tests were astonishingly different, and I've no idea why. : : As near as I can tell, I answered the questions to both as truthfully as I can. : : After taking the first test, my scores were: : : 1 5 : : 2 2 : : 3 4 : : 4 3 : : 5 6 : : 6 3 : : 7 4 : : 8 5 : : 9 2 : : The second test, however, was completely skewed: : : 1 (-7) : : 2 (-2) : : 3 (2) : : 4 (9) : : 5 (0) : : 6 (-2) : : 7 (4) : : 8 (1) : : 9 (-5) : : Which fascinates me. Of course, it might simply be that having taken the first test, I was subconsciously trying to skew the results of the second. But I don't think I was. So I was trying to think of what might make the test scores so different. : : If we assume that I took both tests honestly, I can think of the following hypotheses: : : 1. The first test is faulty. The first test does not take into account the degree to which you feel you are either a or b, and the passion or lack thereof you feel for a statement will indicate which diagram you belong in. Under this model it would seem that some Diagrams share similar traits, but the degree to which those traits exist, or the degree to which they are valued, are different. : : Still, if that were the case I would expect to see some similarity between the two scores. For example, if on the first test diagram 5 is my highest score, I'd expect to see it represented higher than it was on the second. : : 2. The second test is faulty. The second test forces you to choose between two concepts, but you only get to rate ONE. Under some grading schemes this can unbalance one area over others, since there isn't necessarily a way to rate the actual feeling towards the other concept in the pairing. However, this assumes that I actually know how the second test is scored, and I don't. : : 3. Both tests are correct, suggesting that these diagrams are not absolute -- in other words, in some instances, or in a specific area of my life, the first test is correct, and in another area of my life, the second is true. There could be some truth to this -- in my day-to-day life I am a technical writer, when I'm not at work I'm a musician and an internet cartoonist, among other things. : : 4. Both tests are correct, suggesting that I need immediate and extensive therapy. Well, people have suggested that from time to time, but I always assumed they were joking. : : 5. Both tests are faulty, for the reasons stated in items 1 and 2. I really can't comment on that, for the same reasons listed in 1 and 2. : : Those are the ones I came up with. Can anyone else think of any other scenarios? Or do you think I just pissed away one of the tests for some reason or another?

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