# Enneagram Population Distribution



## CHR15T1N4 (Dec 14, 2011)

Swordsman of Mana said:


> doubtful. enneagram and mbti are correlated (albeit, not directly) and as MBTI type %s vary widely, it would be illogical to think that enneagram wouldn't as well


+1
When you take parental orientation into account type 9 should be the most common and type 4 the least common type.
Also I read anywhere that the enneagram type is also the result of the social circumstances. Children that personally experience war are more likely to develop into a 8 then normally for example.

So the enneagram type distribution should differ extremly from one ethnical group to another. And the worldwide enneagram distribution would be heavily related to the enneagram distribution in asia and so on...
(I feel a strong urge to analyze which enneagram type would be probably the most common there but I stop now, it's getting complex and timeconsuming...perhaps a 5 wants to do this job? )


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## zallla (Oct 11, 2011)

CHR15T1N4 said:


> +1
> When you take parental orientation into account type 9 should be the most common and type 4 the least common type.
> Also I read anywhere that the enneagram type is also the result of the social circumstances. Children that personally experience war are more likely to develop into a 8 then normally for example.
> 
> ...



You could be right... But I tend to think that we have our motivations from the beginning. It would be weird to think that experiences make us having motivations because it's the other way around: our motivations make us have certain experiences. Of course, war and things like that are different but for example, if you're born with a certain set of biological tendencies (=temperament) you are more likely to experience things in a certain way. Same situation, for example new people, and introverted and extroverted people have totally different experiences about it.

That's also why I think that for example Fours aren't always abandoned, they just feel like they were because of their inborn qualities and motivations. I've been writing about Enneagram theory here, check it out if you're interested. It has a link to a source about this things.


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## Promethea (Aug 24, 2009)

Swordsman of Mana said:


> doubtful. enneagram and mbti are correlated (albeit, not directly) and as MBTI type %s vary widely, it would be illogical to think that enneagram wouldn't as well


Enneagram and mbti measure different things and only some types seem to correlate in some, maybe even many instances, but thats not enough to say that in general they correlate. Enneagram typings are also often wrong because of a poor understanding of the system, and an inability to see the self as one truly is oftentimes (because of the mechanisms that each type starts building in order to cope with the self and the world).

I don't know what this has to do with type distributions either. Its going to be impossible at this point to get an accurate type distribution for any typology system because they are not used in the general public, when they are they are often poorly understood and people mistype, and the pools where these statistics are pulled from are probably heavier in certain types that are attracted to those groups. 

So here is what we are trying to pull these statistics from: a group of only people consisting of mainly types that are drawn to typology, many of whom may be mistyped. I am willing to base anything on that at all.


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## timeless (Mar 20, 2010)

Swordsman of Mana said:


> doubtful. enneagram and mbti are correlated (albeit, not directly) and as MBTI type %s vary widely, it would be illogical to think that enneagram wouldn't as well


No, this is bad logic for a couple of reasons.

(1) The correlations themselves are dubious. They tend to be informal studies that don't control for bias. For example, you'll often see reasoning like this: _"I'm an INTJ and I'm a Type Five. I know this because the central idea of type five is knowledge, and I like to study and learn new things."_ That's a common, but incorrect, line of thought because "knowledge" doesn't mean the same thing in these two contexts.

(2) Even if there was some correlation, there's still another layer of analysis, and that's to tell if the global MBTI statistics are right. You could have 100% correlation between MBTI and Enneagram but if your MBTI population distribution is off, then this tells you nothing about whether Enneagram has to follow the same trends.

(3) A weak correlation (you admit it's not a direct correlation) is not strong enough evidence to suggest that trends that apply to MBTI should be followed in Enneagram.


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## Nobleheart (Jun 9, 2010)

Enneagram Institute seems to think that real world populations look like 
9 - 6 - 3 - 7 - 2 - 8 - 1 - 4 - 5

And online / interested in Enneagram populations look like
4 - 9 - 6 - 2 - 1 - 7 - 5 - 3 - 8

Based on what don't seem to be more than 1,000 person sample sizes.

This site has a study of married couples, which also has data management issues.
Demographics


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## Swordsman of Mana (Jan 7, 2011)

looking at it again, I'd say

1: 10%
2: 10%
3: 13%
4: 5%
5: 5%
6: 25%
7: 7%
8: 6%
9: 19%


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## The Exception (Oct 26, 2010)

Swordsman of Mana said:


> looking at it again, I'd say
> 
> 1: 10%
> 2: 10%
> ...


How are you coming up with these percentages? 
Just a guess or statistically evaluating people you know?


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## Swordsman of Mana (Jan 7, 2011)

Fractals and Pterodactyls said:


> How are you coming up with these percentages?
> Just a guess or statistically evaluating people you know?


mostly a guess


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## Teen Rose (Aug 4, 2018)

Swordsman of Mana said:


> 1 is definitely more common than 7


Definitely not. There are def. not so many honest practical people in this world. 7 is one of the MOST common people i encounter be it ESTP, ESFP or the lesser side ENTP, ENFP.


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## Jaune (Jul 11, 2013)

Nobleheart said:


> And online / interested in Enneagram populations look like
> 4 - 9 - 6 - 2 - 1 - 7 - 5 - 3 - 8


This is weird to me, since a lot of people (mis)type as 5 on the Internet. They're right with 4 and 9 in that regard.



Teen Rose said:


> Definitely not. There are def. not so many honest practical people in this world. 7 is one of the MOST common people i encounter be it ESTP, ESFP or the lesser side ENTP, ENFP.


I agree that 7ish people can seem pretty common (not to mention, easier to spot) but depending on the country you live in, there's a lot of 1ish people too (1ish stereotypical behavior is pretty Te-ish and I don't think there's a shortage of TJs; 1w2 is pretty well correlated with FJ and that's not an uncommon type at all).

Of course, I think that it's impossible to enneagram type someone you come across very rarely and it's stupid to type based solely on their behavior since the point of enneagram should be to focus on core desires and fears, so they very well might not be 1s or 7s. I say 1ish and 7ish because those sort of typings would be based on shallow observations.


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