# Hormonal/Chemical Basis for Enneatypes?



## emerald sea (Jun 4, 2011)

I just saw an article (linked here) correlating hormone/chemical levels in the body to enneatypes, and found it fascinating due to a personal interest in endocrinology.

It makes sense that these chemical states could result in variations among people in mood, energy, drive, activity/passivity, positivity/negativity, emotional connection or fear of it, etc. but I doubt that it accounts for the entirety of the personality. 

Also, a variety of factors cause these chemical levels to rise or drop - within a single day - in the same individual; does this mean that the enneatype manifestation fluctuates along with the chemicals? 

Thoughts?


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## Ace Face (Nov 13, 2011)

It's interesting for sure, but I doubt everyone's hormonal levels reflect what's proposed.


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## RepairmanMan Man (Jan 21, 2012)

After reading about brain science, I've started thinking recently that enneagram type has something to do with neurochemistry--the types of hormones our limbic system spits out or something.

I'm not quite sure I agree with the link you posted, but it's a good thought. I think they're onto something.


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## darude11 (Jul 6, 2011)

There is my opinion on this:
First of all, it is almost year since I found out about these (no, wait, it's more than year!) and I made some connections while working with these and other materials on internet. My opinion is that whole tritype is important, when you're looking at these chemicals/hormones.

So, here is my idea. Let's take as example my tritype: 5-9-2 (let's ignore for first time order). Now let's look at what are their levels of chemicals (in order Serotonin-Norepinepherine-Dopamine):
2 = ^->->
5 = v-^-v
9 = ^-v-v
What I found out about is that there is also fourth kind of triads, which should complete this scheme (however I am not sure whether or not there is chemical for these, so I call it Motivation):
3-6-9 = ^
1-4-7 = >
2-5-8 = v
Let's add these on the last place, so the sequence is complete.

2 = ^->->-v
5 = v-^-v-v
9 = ^-v-v-^

Now have a look at it by columns. You can clearly see, that each column has got two of three chemicals on same level. Well, all columns except for second, which stands for norepinepherine (which is correct, because this chemical stands for triads of head/heart/body). Let's ignore these and write out chemicals, which are in each column at least twice. You'll get chemicals for whole tritype:

^-X-v-v
Ta-daaa! (note: norepinepherine hasn't got any of chemical levels in common, so I just put a X in there.)

Well, that's where the public theory ends. The rest is only theory (this is theory too!), which is only tought about lately. The rest includes answers to questions like "What happens to second of three levels of chemicals?" or "How is it possible, that my tritype is '6-9-2', but my 6 seems so 7-ish?" etc. It has got, however, lots of contradictions in itself, which are not solved yet, so that's why I keep it private. If you (yes, you, reader!) want to try out helping, well, there are only two things to say.
1. Warning - you might go mad because of this. If you don't want to become madman, then don't read number 2.
2. You reading? Still? Even through I warned you about madman thing? Well, fine. You can PM me about this.

Another example would be OP of this thread, @emerald sea is 4-7-9. So your chemicals would be according to this theory high serotonin, low dopamine and motivation called "frustration" (google it if you don't know).

If I accidentaly insulted somebody, sorry.


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## The Nth Doctor (May 18, 2012)

darude11 said:


> There is my opinion on this:
> 
> * *
> 
> ...


Interesting. My current thinking is that my tritype is 6-3-9, so I'll see what I get with that.

6 = v-^->-^
3 = >->-^-^
9 = ^-v-v-^

X - X - X - ^

That does make some sense. Even though I'm at least prone to low self-esteem and imagining worst-case scenarios, I'm also usually really stable and optimistic


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## Promethea (Aug 24, 2009)

A hormone imbalance can give you anxiety, so can a vitamin b deficiency -- I guess that either can make you a 6.

Some women have a hormone imbalance for up to two weeks before their periods which creates a lot of anxiety. I suppose some people can just be part-time 6s.

Emerald, btw I'm not pickin' on you - but the enneagram community in general ; )


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## darude11 (Jul 6, 2011)

The Nth Doctor said:


> Interesting. My current thinking is that my tritype is 6-3-9, so I'll see what I get with that.
> 
> 6 = v-^->-^
> 3 = >->-^-^
> ...


Yeah, I actually forgot to explain this part.

Uhh, well... thing is, that in you, there are all the levels for each chemical (except motivation, but that's no chemical, silly me). So you might have sometimes high levels of serotonin, sometimes low levels of dopamine, sometimes both and sometimes neither, well... any of those I guess. I don't know, I don't have much people to experiment with, to observe, I find it always difficult to type people completly and correctly at the same time, and so I don't do it.


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## DomNapoleon (Jan 21, 2012)

Yeah I have read this in the past. It's quite interesting.


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## emerald sea (Jun 4, 2011)

Ace Face said:


> It's interesting for sure, but I doubt everyone's hormonal levels reflect what's proposed.


i agree. 



darude11 said:


> If I accidentaly insulted somebody, sorry.


you didn't insult anyone, don't worry.  

i just wonder how much that is called a "type" is actually standardizable (if that's a word!). there is still a lot of debate out there about the origin of some personality traits - how much is nature, how much is nurture. what is being left out of the equation is how much is hormono-chemical (which includes nutrition as well). 

there are psychiatric operations that appear to be genetically-coded (cf. this book - . there are psychiatric patterns of behavior that are caused by physical disorders or chemical imbalances ~ look at the diabetic who yells because his blood sugar is low, or the woman on PMS. there are also psychiatric patterns that are a result of response to circumstances and habit. the way someone thinks, feels, and behaves is a combination of genes, nurture/circumstances, body chemicals, and choices.



Promethea said:


> A hormone imbalance can give you anxiety, so can a vitamin b deficiency -- I guess that either can make you a 6.
> 
> Some women have a hormone imbalance for up to two weeks before their periods which creates a lot of anxiety. I suppose some people can just be part-time 6s.
> 
> Emerald, btw I'm not pickin' on you - but the enneagram community in general ; )


haha i know, you got my point exactly.  when i said this (quoted below), i was thinking along those same lines:



> Also, a variety of factors cause these chemical levels to rise or drop - within a single day - in the same individual; does this mean that the enneatype manifestation fluctuates along with the chemicals?


 i am doubtful of the article but fascinated by it at the same time, since there often is a chemical basis for psychological manifestations. 

the real point of my thread was - via inductive reasoning, by thinking through what was stated in the enneagram blogspot post - to demonstrate that an individual personality type can't truly be boxed into ONE manifestation, or ONE behavior pattern that _always_ is followed without any deviation...and you got the point.  body chemicals fluctuate, during each day, as a matter of regular body operation; and all of them have influences on the way we feel and operate. so anyone of any type can act entirely out of line with the "box" of their type, for nothing other than simple chemical reasons. 

take high adrenaline for example ~ someone racing a car, playing video games, drinking a lot of coffee, using lots of sudafed, etc. could look temporarily look or behave like that type...just like little kids high on too much sugar, bouncing off the walls, can't stay focused, get bored easily, etc. women's serotonin levels drop at the same point in their cycle that PMS strikes. does this make them temporarily another type? this is the crazy thing about it all ~ _we are all going to act like another type sometimes_, and not just under stress or integration...body chemistry dictates this. enneagram boxes don't exist to cage people and our bodies aren't chemically-structured to allow our psyches to remain permanently box-shaped.

pop endocrinology is no more reliable than pop psychology. 

in my opinion, nutrition also needs to be taken into account in the role it plays on the psyche, because the brain is a physical organism that responds to chemical substances, and what you eat or drink has a lot to do with controlling those chemical substances. as a Four, i've found that non-circumstantially-related emotions can be stabilized to a degree by regulating sugar intake. sugar addiction in the absence of recently-consumed sugar can make you an emotional basketcase. emotional rollercoasters are not always, but can be sometimes, driven by refined carbs.


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## zethry (Nov 15, 2011)

I also found it interesting, but what about if you are on a medication that changes the chemicals/hormones in your brain? Wouldn't that mean that your personality would change as well (according to this theory)? And that does not make sense to me.


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## darude11 (Jul 6, 2011)

emerald sea said:


> you didn't insult anyone, don't worry.














> i just wonder how much that is called a "type" is actually standardizable (if that's a word!). there is still a lot of debate out there about the origin of some personality traits - how much is nature, how much is nurture. what is being left out of the equation is how much is hormono-chemical (which includes nutrition as well).
> 
> there are psychiatric operations that appear to be genetically-coded (cf. this book - . there are psychiatric patterns of behavior that are caused by physical disorders or chemical imbalances ~ look at the diabetic who yells because his blood sugar is low, or the woman on PMS. there are also psychiatric patterns that are a result of response to circumstances and habit. the way someone thinks, feels, and behaves is a combination of genes, nurture/circumstances, body chemicals, and choices.
> 
> ...


That was one of those parts, which I haven't publicly talked about (even to those which PMed me), thingy is that the Enneagram design seems to be... static. What I wanted to do was to make it dynamic, even though there are some chemicals. What can you read from article you posted in original post is that there are only 9 combinations of levels of those chemicals aviable for people from 27 (well, 3 states for each of those 3, 3^3=27), and so question was where are other combinations. I attemped to answer it. I knew that there are no such connections between these chemicals (well, I felt it, you know, intuitively... I knew it is like that but I had no idea why), and so I done researches and experimented.
I stumbled upon madhatter's tritype descriptions and I noticed, that in some of them there is written something, which could be translated this way (again I use my tritype as example):

592 - 7-like 5, 8-like 9, 4-like 2

It has something to do with original properties of types that are in triads etc. etc. etc., so I tried to simplify it. Example how it works: 5 is like 7 because 7 fits into triad with other two types of tritype - 9 and 2 (792 positive triad I guess).
I was looking at it obviously for too long (y'know, school is really boring place and I had to do something, so I did lots of experiments (since I couldn't do research with lack of internet connection, our class has got bad signal)) and found out that if you pick two random types of Enneagram, they have exactly one triad (or one level of one chemical) in common. Try it, it's fun! (note, if there is no chemical from website, which would fit, then it's about motivation, you pick probably two of either 258, 369 or 147) No, it's not really fun.
Let's say that we've got perfect person (according to site), whose chemical levels would be like this:
Serotonin - high
Norepinepherine - (let's ignore this, we'll try to guess his tritype)
Dopamine - high
Motivation - high (369 one seems best, I don't know why exactly it should but whatever)
With these information we can get answer to question "What is this person's tritype?". It's 379 (ignore order, it can be also 973, 937 etc.).
Now comes dynamic part - what if brain of this person stops with producing so much Serotonin? How much would change about this person? (and let's assume only serotonin would change and there wouldn't be any important change in any other chemical, even those unlisted)
Well, it's tritype would now seem more as 368 in random order. That's - if you ask me - big leap. I know it's big leap because the person's level of serotonin simply jumped from day to day from high point to lowest possible, it's huge change. Obviously it didn't affect 3-ish part of this person's nature. Why? Try to figure it out yourself, I don't have much time to explain it and it would also probably be too complicated.
If the person has only medium level of Serotonin (and all other chemicals exactly same or with no important difference), it would seem as perfect type 3 (medium serotonin, high dopamine and the comfort kind of motivation fits exactly type 3 and nothing/nobody else). Strange, huh? The other two types somehow fade away suddenly. Why? I don't know 

If I (592) suddenly lost my high level of Serotonin (which anyway I doubt I have that usually) (and by lost I mean it lowered to medium level), my tritype would also seem like exactly 5. If it lowered to total "low" level, my tritype would change suddenly to 584. Well that's new. It might explain my 4-ish tendencies (or those might be explained by 4-like 2 as stated above).

There are also tritypes, which are (sadly it can't be helped) too boring to consult by chemical side of their personality, beucase it seems that their tritype is exact same as some of triads (279, 135, 468, 378, 126, 459, 369, 147, 258 - any of these in random order), and so they have only one of chemicals according to theory. Well, my guess is that their other chemicals are so unbalanced (by that I mean constantly changing their level) that it's left undetermined.

Whoah, and I was able to explain this all before half past twelve at night. Time for some rewarding sleep! Good night!


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## Bricolage (Jul 29, 2012)

This is pure speculation but I would wager enneagram type sixes have less circulating serotonin and increased amygdala activity; type sevens have less dopamine and norepinephrine in the prefrontal cortex; type eights and type twos have generally overactive limbic systems; and, type nines got the clean side of the dropped lollypop with GABA and oxytocin output. I'm basically predicating these correlations on symptoms of certain enneagram types (e.g., type sixes and fear/worry and type eights and aggression) and pop neuroscience but, again, all speculation. :tongue:


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## RepairmanMan Man (Jan 21, 2012)

Promethea said:


> A hormone imbalance can give you anxiety, so can a vitamin b deficiency -- I guess that either can make you a 6.


So can thyroid problems. Thyroid issues can also_ kill_ all anxiety, and I have experienced both these things. Did I become more and less of a 6 during this time? Well, define "anxiety", and see below.



zethry said:


> I also found it interesting, but what about if you are on a medication that changes the chemicals/hormones in your brain? Wouldn't that mean that your personality would change as well (according to this theory)? And that does not make sense to me.


That's a great point. Like I said above, I recently suffered from a bout of hypothyroidism that essentially killed off all emotions except for happiness and extreme violent, destructive rage (as in, the only reason I'm not in prison is because I was too sick to get out of bed). Was I an unhealthy 8w9 during this time? I certainly felt so--but I think the question is, were my defense mechanisms altered? I think those stayed the same.


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## Spades (Aug 31, 2011)

Too sleepy to fully reply properly, but I definitely have an interest in this area. So far, there is no actual research done; what you posted is a preliminary speculation as far as I understand. You can see the more professional version here:

The Enneagram and Brain Chemistry


I will mention that altering your brain chemistry _does_ produce real changes in personality, but Enneagram Type is supposed to, _theoretically_, go deeper than surface personality. When I had clinical depression, I could've been easily mistaken for a Type 4, and indeed my brain chemistry was quite different, but I came out of it my usual Seveny self.


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## Dark Romantic (Dec 27, 2011)

I would definitely want to see a follow up study done for this.


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## emerald sea (Jun 4, 2011)

i created this thread for a different reason than believing that hormone levels account for everything to do with enneatype. see my reply to Promethea in this thread, if you want to know why.


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## Bricolage (Jul 29, 2012)

emerald sea said:


> i created this thread for a different reason than believing that hormone levels account for* everything* to do with enneatype. see my reply to Promethea in this thread, if you want to know why.


The inclusion of the word _everything_ makes for an untenable theory - hormones and enneagram type, however, definitely interact in fairly predictable ways. I suspect this interaction is both cause and effect but, ultimately, more data is required before postulating firm findings. Nonetheless, I say the interaction of hormones and enneagram type is a cause because childhood behaviors, which are influenced by selective brain activation and unique hormone levels, normally transfer to adulthood; this is to say that rambunctious children (enneagram type seven?), with identified low levels of dopamine or activation in the prefrontal cortex, often persist in their excitabilities as ADHD adults; I say the interaction of hormones and enneagram type is an effect because the symptoms of certain enneagram types appear to match the symptoms of extreme brain function idiosyncrasies and hormone profiles, and both tend to be static and self-reinforcing throughout life.


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