# 5w1... 1w5... or whatever you call it



## Recon777 (May 24, 2013)

I'm new to the Enneagram side of typology, so I'm seeking a bit of insight. From what I've read, there's some dispute as to the whole "wing theory" part of it, but I understand it as that your w component is one number off from your main component. To be honest, I don't see a whole lot of anything but 1 and 5 in myself. No 9, 2, 4 or 6 really. Just 5 and 1. The 5 of course, comes from my Ni, and the 1 comes from my Te. Those being my primary cognitive functions. It makes sense that I'd be this combination, but I don't see how it fits into Enneagram theory very well, since there are 3 numbers between 1 and 5 which I don't relate to.

So, looking at charts like this, I can see that a lot of other INTJs end up scoring as 1's and 5's. More 5 than anything though.









This makes sense to me, since the 1's appear to be populated by SJs and I don't have a whole lot in common with them. Its very interesting to me though, that the Enneagram types can transcend very different cognitive functions. The clearest example of this is that both INTJs and INTPs score heavily as 5's. And yet these two types are enormously different in the way that they process information. My best friend is an INTP, and we are very very different in terms of our skills and mental abilities. Yet we're both 5's. Its interesting stuff.

So for me, when I think of the side of me that is like a 1, it is in areas where I really need to be assertive and responsible. I'd say that I would not have scored a 1 much at all before the age of say, 40. Now at 43 I've changed a whole lot and my Te has matured greatly in the last couple years. I wouldn't say that I am a "natural 1" all that much though. Yeah my hand fits rather well in that glove, but its not the place I've spent most of my life. And when I'm "relaxed" I don't exhibit many "1" traits at all. It comes out when I stand for something that I know to be right and true. Its also a lot of external morals and self confidence that brings this to the surface. As a Christian, my morals are externally derived, so we probably all have some "1" in us if we are biblical Christians. But even in areas not having to do with the faith, I find that my pragmatic side is quite strong in recent years, so I do relate to "1" a fair bit. At the core though, I do feel much more like a 5.

Does any of this make sense? Is there a way to explain this odd combination within me or is this not actually that odd at all?


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## Valtire (Jan 1, 2014)

This study came to some different conclusions:



> INTP: 5, 4 (3.99, 1.47)
> INFP: 4, 9 (2.36, 1.70)
> INTJ: 1, 5 (3.58, 2.19)
> INFJ: 4, 9 (1.92, 1.62)
> ...


Source: MBTI-Enneagram correlations


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## Psithurism (Jun 19, 2013)

Recon777 said:


> The 5 of course, comes from my Ni, and the 1 comes from my Te. Those being my primary cognitive functions. It makes sense that I'd be this combination, but I don't see how it fits into Enneagram theory very well, since there are 3 numbers between 1 and 5 which I don't relate to.


That's not how it works. The cognitive functions have nothing to do with enneagram. The former is about how you tend to perceive and judge information. The latter is about core fears and motivations. This means that any combination is possible in theory. 

If you type yourself as INTJ, it is *normal* for you to relate to the 5 descriptions at least a bit. Just like a INFP might be drawn to 4 descriptions. This is common when people start looking at the descriptions for the first time. I also considered type 5 initially for similar reasons to you perhaps. It changed when I started looking deeper at the type cores.

That being said, you may very well be a 5, of course, but this is definitely not the way to go about it. Forget MBTI/Socionics for this process and see enneagram as its own system. It will remove bias.

To give you an idea, type 2 is one of the types I dismissed when I started.


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## Valtire (Jan 1, 2014)

Desire said:


> That's not how it works. The cognitive functions have nothing to do with enneagram. The former is about how you tend to perceive and judge information. The latter is about core fears and motivations. This means that any combination is possible in theory.


Why would your method of perception and decision making not have an influence on your motivations?

I don't doubt that any combination is theoretically possible, but to ignore the studies that show a correlation is intellectually dishonest.


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## Psithurism (Jun 19, 2013)

Fried Eggz said:


> I don't doubt that any combination is theoretically possible, but to ignore the studies that show a correlation is intellectually dishonest.


I'm just saying it's not a sufficient condition. There are definitely some types INTJs tend to be more than others. I'm not disagreeing with that.

Also, note I said the cognitive functions as stand-alone, not the types. That being said, I still think it is better to just take those statistics as just giving a general idea of what is more common. But what if one happens to be one of the rarer combinations? I'm just saying to be thorough in one's approach.

Only one being intellectually dishonest here is you, by putting words in my mouth. I am not ''ignoring'' those statistics.


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## Recon777 (May 24, 2013)

Ok so I understand the differences now and agree that you're probably right in that the types of one system are describing different things than the types of another system. Correlations are bound to happen and good to be aware of, but again its just statistics. Its good to have an understanding of both systems, to fill out a greater understanding of yourself.

I do still quite well relate to both 5 and 1 as I said, but its hard to pinpoint exactly why that is. Its definitely contextual. When I read about the 5 type, I relate to it strongly under certain contexts of my life. Mostly my private life. When dealing with others, I tend to be much more 1-like. Its fascinating and I'd like to learn more about this. But I'm more interested in knowing what's actually real than "being right", so if any of my early theories are incorrect, I can self-evaluate and fix 'em just fine.

When reading about how 5 and 1 are opposite in terms of how they judge things, I find that also to be quite interesting. Yeah I do have an absolute sense of judging which tends to be very 1-like. I see things mostly as factual or false, with very little subjectivity. When it comes to indulgences of thought, I am much less strict. I like philosophy and theoretical abstract mental exercises. I'm not under any illusion though, that such things are real unless they make sense _as_ real things. In this, my mind seems to flit back and forth between 5 thinking and 1 thinking quite fluidly. I'm an intellectual explorer at heart, and thoroughly enjoy discovery. In some ways though, I find it extremely tedious to sift through mountains of raw data looking for a specific answer. All of this causes me to wonder what triggers a preference toward 1 or 5 and at what times. Not sure yet, so I guess I'll keep reading. Any thoughts or insight from you all is most welcome of course.


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## Psithurism (Jun 19, 2013)

Recon777 said:


> I'll keep reading. Any thoughts or insight from you all is most welcome of course.


There are people that were kind enough to gather lots of information on the enneagram for convenience in the forum (i.e stickies). I would suggest reading those, if you haven't already.

Best of luck with your introspection.


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## Valtire (Jan 1, 2014)

@Recon777 you may well have a tritype of 15x.


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## ElliCat (May 4, 2014)

Fried Eggz said:


> @Recon777 you may well have a tritype of 15x.


That was my first thought too. Look up tritypes in the stickies; they were really useful for me when I was trying to figure everything out. Like you, I related to more than one type - I identified first as a 9 and then as a 4 - and eventually I pinned down 7 as the missing piece. It seems really obvious when I look at it now but I'd initially dismissed it as too extroverted for my delicate introverted self. 

Basically it sounds like you've got 5 for a head type, 1 for a gut type, and have yet to figure out your heart type. (I'm noticing a trend with the core head types I've tried to help type... heart seems to be the least obvious. Dunno if that's anyone else's experience.)

Wings might be a bit hard to figure out and it is possible to have balanced wings. But like you've read, it's only possible to be 5w4 or 5w6, or 1w9 or 1w2. All I can advise is to read lots and lots of different sources. Search on this site, search on Google... I spent months on this, before I even joined PerC!


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## Recon777 (May 24, 2013)

Wow, that's really interesting! I'm going to have to dig into this and figure it out. You may be right - I have some traits which I haven't mentioned yet which may apply to this "heart" side. As an INTJ, I have an unusually well developed Fi function. I'm very sentimental and also much, much more considerate toward others than the typical INTJ. I get very moved by certain pieces of music or scenes in some movies. I have a _very_ soft spot for things which depict sufferings which I myself have experienced, such a being neglected or discarded. But on the other hand, its almost impossible for me to relate to someone who is suffering in a way which I've never personally suffered. Like having a chronic illness such as cancer. 

When I first started learning about my personality, I jumped into it from the realization that I likely had Sensory Perception Sensitivity, which apparently about 1 in 6 people have. Being a "highly sensitive person" and also an INTJ is quite an interesting combination, and it makes me quite a bit different than my fellow INTJs who seem much more cold and steely. 

I'm also not very shy or quiet and can get quite excited when talking with someone who is interested in the same things I am. I can get fairly passionate and animated at these times, but its only if we're discussing areas I'm already interested in and familiar with. I tend to write really long posts and emails when in a dialog with others. I always proofread all my emails at least twice before sending, and in any typical conversation I'll do the majority of the talking. That is, unless its a group conversation, where I'll usually sit quietly and watch unless I have a point I urgently need to make. The more people in the group, the less likely I'll speak up. My limit in comfortable social gatherings is about 8 people. More than that, and I'll typically blend in the background and observe. I don't like all eyes on me in a group.

Also, I'm an absolute disaster when it comes to any sort of multitasking effort. I truly can only focus on one thing at a time, specifically when others are asking me to handle a matter. If two people simultaneously ask me to do something, I just freeze up. I have to completely neglect one of them and focus on the other, or I won't be able to do anything. Thank goodness I only have one child; I have seen parents with multiple kids poking them for stuff at the same time and it makes my brain hurt just witnessing it even if its not directed at me personally. I go to my INTP buddy's house and he has *five* children, and he seems to handle it just peachy, while playing a computer game, fixing a busted pc and cooking dinner all within the same half-hour timespan. I don't know how he does it.

So with these clues, I'll continue my research. I'm very grateful that you mentioned tritypes. I never heard of this, but I would not be at all surprised if it applied in my case.

[edit]

Given the choices between 512, 513 and 514 I'd say its becoming pretty clear that I'd be a 514.
btw, does it matter the order? I mean, is there any difference between 514, 154, 541, etc?


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## Paradigm (Feb 16, 2010)

Desire said:


> That's not how it works. The cognitive functions have nothing to do with enneagram. The former is about how you tend to perceive and judge information. The latter is about core fears and motivations. This means that any combination is possible in theory.
> 
> If you type yourself as INTJ, it is *normal* for you to relate to the 5 descriptions at least a bit. Just like a INFP might be drawn to 4 descriptions. This is common when people start looking at the descriptions for the first time. I also considered type 5 initially for similar reasons to you perhaps. It changed when I started looking deeper at the type cores.
> 
> That being said, you may very well be a 5, of course, but this is definitely not the way to go about it. Forget MBTI/Socionics for this process and see enneagram as its own system. It will remove bias.


Thank you so much for saying this. There seems to be a massive influx of MBTI "correlations" this month :frustrating: _Really _wish people would stop with them. It helps no one to rationalize either typing with random (erroneous) percentages.

And don't bother with tritypes yet, @Recon777. Figure out your core type first. Tritypes will just confuse the matter more.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

MBTI works on 4 conscious functions whereas the Enneagram operates mostly on a subconscious level. 

Attempts to correlate the two typologies always seem to run into problems because people are amazing bundles of contradiction and don't seem to cooperate.

Next, if you're a 5, then your possible wings are 6 or 4. If you are a 1, then your possible wings are 9 or 2. 
So "5w1/1w5" is not a possible core type/wing combination. It could very well be that 1 or 5 is in your tritype, however. 

What you need to do with the Enneagram, is put MBTI aside and look at yourself from a slightly different perspective. Keep your childhood and personal history in mind while you work on this. 
Start with the basics: 

Discover your Core type
Determine your Wing
Determine your Instinctual Subtype Stacking
Determine your Tritype 

Keep in mind, the tests are good for helping you to narrow things down, but you don't want to rely too heavily on them. Your true type resonates with you, it makes sense when you look at it carefully from the point of view of your personal history and childhood. 

Try this Test. It's long, but I've had good luck with it.


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## Recon777 (May 24, 2013)

@Paradigm Don't worry about me being confused with the tritypes. I'm more confused if there is an incomplete match (as is the case with pure 5 and pure 1 with me). There's no doubt that I've got strong tendencies in both 5 and 1. I don't know about this "wing theory" business, but I'm inclined to be skeptical of it. Why would the adjacent type in the number arrangement matter? Is this empirically observed in most cases? Anyway, looking at the tritypes I do see quite easily that this could very well be the answer I've been looking for.

Reading about the 514 tritype on this page, it is almost a perfect match. I'm impressed.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

Recon777 said:


> @_Paradigm_ Don't worry about me being confused with the tritypes. I'm more confused if there is an incomplete match (as is the case with pure 5 and pure 1 with me). There's no doubt that I've got strong tendencies in both 5 and 1. I don't know about this "wing theory" business, but I'm inclined to be skeptical of it. Why would the adjacent type in the number arrangement matter? Is this empirically observed in most cases? Anyway, looking at the tritypes I do see quite easily that this could very well be the answer I've been looking for.
> 
> Reading about the 514 tritype on this page, it is almost a perfect match. I'm impressed.


Did you read my post at all?


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## Recon777 (May 24, 2013)

Yep, I plan on going through all that material and the test. Good stuff, thanks!
Reading about the 514's if its true, it would explain a whole lot. Eccentric and quirky only begins the story. Very interested in seeing how this turns out.


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## ElliCat (May 4, 2014)

Yeah, I can imagine that being HSP would shake things up for you a bit! I'm the same but I guess INFP is a bit more stereotypical, being introverted feelers at all. 



> I can get fairly passionate and animated at these times, but its only if we're discussing areas I'm already interested in and familiar with. I tend to write really long posts and emails when in a dialog with others. I always proofread all my emails at least twice before sending, and in any typical conversation I'll do the majority of the talking. That is, unless its a group conversation, where I'll usually sit quietly and watch unless I have a point I urgently need to make. The more people in the group, the less likely I'll speak up. My limit in comfortable social gatherings is about 8 people. More than that, and I'll typically blend in the background and observe. I don't like all eyes on me in a group.
> 
> Also, I'm an absolute disaster when it comes to any sort of multitasking effort. I truly can only focus on one thing at a time, specifically when others are asking me to handle a matter. If two people simultaneously ask me to do something, I just freeze up. I have to completely neglect one of them and focus on the other, or I won't be able to do anything.


Actually I relate to nearly all of this, haha. I can talk someone's ear off if I'm comfortable around them and have a lot to say about something, but I'd say it's pretty 50/50 as to whether it's me or the other person who dominates the conversation. But yeah, whoever said women could multitask were lying - sometimes I try to, say if I'm cooking dinner and listening to music/singing/dancing around the kitchen, or going back and forth from the kitchen to the computer trying to follow a recipe (well, "follow".... get hints while effing it up completely), but that doesn't always work. Forgotten saucepans happen a bit too often for my comfort!

But to answer your question: technically the order of numbers indicates how much you relate to each. So the first number will be your core type, followed by the one you relate to second most, followed by the one you relate to the least. In my case I strongly relate to 4 and the other two are kind of maybe sort of equal (I'm not good at figuring out amounts of things)? So 4's first. Then I just followed what everyone else did. I think there's some sort of official order where as a core heart type my tritype will go heart > head > gut, and a head type will be head > gut > heart, so I'm 479 and you'd be 514. (I'm assuming a gut type will then be gut > heart > head.) But I don't know if that's official or if it's just something someone said somewhere.

edit: I somehow missed a whole page of discussion! Basically the idea is that each wing gives a slightly different "flavour" to the type. So no, you might not relate much to pure 4 or pure 6 (unless you have a strong wing) but chances are you'll lean towards either 5-with-a-bit-of-4 or 5-with-a-tinge-of-6.


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## Recon777 (May 24, 2013)

Ah ok so there's quite a few combinations then if order matters. And I'd say that my current guess is 5-1-4 for me. Definitely the intellectual and I love my freedom to think how I please, so I will explore my hard boundaries to find out what my limits are first and then once I have them defined I will explore the full extent of what is ok to explore. There's definitely areas which I won't go though, so I'm not what you'd call an anarchist by any means. Still, I absolutely hate arbitrary limits set by people who I don't consider to be my authority. A lot of this is the 5 and 4 side, with the 1 keeping me orderly and following the rules which I have judged to be valid. But as an INTJ (rather than an ISTJ) I don't just follow any old rule. It needs to _make sense_, or I discard it.

Not to try too hard to bring MBTI into Enneagram but I've noticed in the patterns that the Enneagram type seems to disregard the J/P variations. This is in stark contrast to the Jung functions, which are all flipped between J and P. So again between me and my INTP friend, we are both extremely different in MBTI, but in Enneagram we're pretty much identical. I find that fascinating. I also find it interesting how certain pairs of dissimilar functions have correlations when you include likely Enneagram patterns. Si and Ni for instance. Te and Fe. Things like that. Of course, being an Ni dominant, I can't help but notice (and talk about) these fun facts. ^_^ I guess its also a big part of being a 5-1-4 that I'll pick some really interesting topic, and study the heck out of it and then show everyone all of what I've learned because in some way I am convinced that they will all benefit from this knowledge just as much as I did. _That_ is probably my most defining social characteristic.


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## caramel_choctop (Sep 20, 2010)

Recon777 said:


> Yep, I plan on going through all that material and the test. Good stuff, thanks!
> Reading about the 514's if its true, it would explain a whole lot. Eccentric and quirky only begins the story. Very interested in seeing how this turns out.


If I were you, frankly, I'd forget about the tritype altogether and focus on your core type. This is why I don't put much stock in trittpe theory to begin with, because they cloud the issue and make the Enneagram far more superficial. The Enneagram is _about_ self-discovery and part of that is realising how you aren't boxed in by anything, type or otherwise. You're meant to discover your flaws and potential, often over years. It's not about finding the generic description you relate to or admire and then wearing it like a badge. If you claim yourself 514 without a skerrick of self-examination, you might as well take one of those "Which Frozen character are you?" quizzes for all the effect it'll have.


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## Recon777 (May 24, 2013)

Oh don't misunderstand me at this: If I say 514, that doesn't mean I am just finished and wear it like a badge. It is only the _beginning_ of the discovery process. It is that which the evidence points most likely to.

The simple fact is, I can look at the data on 5 type and I can tell right away that this is a quite incomplete picture of me. No, not only incomplete but also somewhat inaccurate. The traits which I have that don't fit 5 very well do seem to fit 1 well, and vice versa. This is why I originally asked about 5-1 combinations because I see strong tendencies of both in myself. I do think that 5 is the core type as I have always been known as the intellectual, but only in the last decade or so have I been quite solid in convictions of "what is right" and even that is mostly due to my faith which is the external source of my morality. Most 5's don't have an external source of morality, and that's a very key difference here. If I weren't a Christian, would I have 1 traits? I'm not sure. Maybe not.


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## Dragheart Luard (May 13, 2013)

Recon777 said:


> Oh don't misunderstand me at this: If I say 514, that doesn't mean I am just finished and wear it like a badge. It is only the _beginning_ of the discovery process. It is that which the evidence points most likely to.
> 
> The simple fact is, I can look at the data on 5 type and I can tell right away that this is a quite incomplete picture of me. No, not only incomplete but also somewhat inaccurate. The traits which I have that don't fit 5 very well do seem to fit 1 well, and vice versa. This is why I originally asked about 5-1 combinations because I see strong tendencies of both in myself. I do think that 5 is the core type as I have always been known as the intellectual, but only in the last decade or so have I been quite solid in convictions of "what is right" and even that is mostly due to my faith which is the external source of my morality. Most 5's don't have an external source of morality, and that's a very key difference here. If I weren't a Christian, would I have 1 traits? I'm not sure. Maybe not.


Eh, to be honest I seriously recommend to focus on the motivations of the types and to check others besides of 5, 1 and 4. I've mistyped as 5 and 1 and at the end my real type was 7, which is also a head type like 5 and can be intellectual, same for 6.


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