A Brief Review and Update
In an article in June of 1997 1, John Richards presented a chart that summarizes the findings derived from 'combining' the data generated by the recent Richards/Flautt study with Baron's 'most current research'. His chart demonstrates that in 13 out of 18 cases the two MBTI types that they found most highly correlated to each enneazone are precisely the ones that Pat Dinkelaker and I identified as 'prototypes' for that zone in our original MBTI-Enneagram theory.
In the following table, the Richards/Flautt/Baron (R/F/B) conclusions appear in the left hand column; for each enneazone, all of the MBTI types that show a significant correlation, according to R/F/B, are listed in descending order, with the 'most correlated' type on the extreme left. In the remaining column is the Jungian type (defined as an MBTI pair) that Pat and I assigned to each of the enneazones as 'prototypes'. An asterisk was placed after each one of the prototypes only if it matched one of the top two types identified by R/F/B. In this way, 13 out of 18 possible 'hits' are identified - a 72 % prediction rate. And these thirteen are the SAME thirteen that we score as 'hits' with respect to the EM-survey data (see 'Charts 1 through 4', for raw data and detailed analysis). There is thus significant and CONSISTENT statistical data that demonstrates a tendency for MBTI types to cluster according to Jungian type in the manner that we have specified in our original theory.
Only those who have a strong vested interest in denying that an 'exact correlation between the distinct types of the two systems' can be specified will choose to ignore the pattern appearing in this (and the EM) data and refuse to discuss its meaning. In the winter of 1996, in an effort to understand what is happening in the zones that generate 'anomalous' data for out theory (zone 7, in particular, but also 3 and 6), Pat and I subjected the EM data to an analysis using a statistical method that we developed for the purpose of quantitatively measuring the extent to which the distribution of any given MBTI type across all nine enneazones resembles the distribution of any other MBTI type. [See 'The Impact of 'S-N Blindness on the Distribution of MBTI types Across the Enneagram']. Each possible pair was measured and ranked in comparison with all other possible MBTI pairs. We expected to find that the MBTI types comprising a Jungian 'pair' (ESFJ and ENFJ, for instance) exhibited highest 'similarity' in distribution patterns. Our analysis confirmed that this in fact is so - the partners in such pairs generally seem to 'follow' each other into the same enneazones. But we also discovered a tendency of some MBTI types to pair up and 'hang out' with partners that were not their Jungian mates - the ESTP and the ENTP, for instance. In our attempt to discern a general principle that could account for the similarity in patterns of distribution in these 'renegade' pairs, we discovered that they had something in common: the partners in any given renegade pair were the MBTI types that we would mistake for each other were we (ie, our testing procedures) unable to distinguish between a 'dominant S' function and a 'dominant N' function in an individual - in other words, if we had 'S-N blindness' with respect to the dominant function of individuals.
If one were blind in this way one could not distinguish, for example, between an ESTP and an ENTP. And, low and behold, these two occur as the two most frequent MBTI types in zone 3, according to R/F/B, despite the fact that they are MBTI 'opposites' - the former exhibiting extraverted 'S' as a dominant function and the later displaying extraverted 'N' as the dominant function - and might thus, from an MBTI point of view, be expected to be amongst the least likely to pair up and choose to reside in the same zones.
If one had an S-N dominant-function blindness, one could also not distinguish between an ESFP and an ENFP (and these two MBTI types cluster together, in high concentrations, in zone 7 - despite the fact that they also have 'opposite' dominant functions). Also, one would not be able to distinguish between an INFJ and ISFJ, or an ISTJ and INTJ - and these two conflations result in the rampant confusions we witness in recent enneagram discussions regarding zones 4 and 6: [See Huber , or Fudjack ]: is Colonel Slader (an ISTJ) really a 6 and not a 4? Is Hitler a 4 or a 6?, etc. All these dominant-function 'S-N' pairs were precisely the 'renegade' couplings that did occur; and they formed the only distinct group of renegade pairs.
Analysis of distribution patterns also demonstrates that there is no equivalent 'T-F' blindness. Thinking and feeling are clearly distinguished in Enneagram theory and testing procedures. Thus the INFP, for example, does not demonstrate a similarity in distribution pattern to the INTP - they do not tend toward the same zones. We offer an extensive treatment of this and other matters in the paper entitled 'The Impact of 'S-N Blindness' on the Distribution of MBTI Types across the Enneagram', written in the winter of 96, and first presented publicly here. Interestingly, the new Richards/Flautt study concludes that in zone 9 the ISFP is the most concentrated MBTI type, in zone 6 the ISFJ leads the pack, and in zone 5 the ISTP comes in second only to the INTP. This is what we have been saying all along. Ironically, when Flautt, before conducting his own study, attempted to 'evaluate' our theory on the basis of the Enneagram Monthly data, he suppressed the fact that the ISFP had the highest 'I-value' in zone 9 in the EM survey, the ISTP (and not the INTJ, as he reported) had the second highest I- value in 5, and the fact that the ISFJ had the second highest value in zone 6 [see the four 'Charts' for details supporting this observation], and this permitted him to score our assignment of the ISFP as a prototype in 9, the ISFJ as a prototype in 6, and the ISTP in 5 as 'misses'! In truth, the Richards/Flautt study generated strikingly similar data to the Enneagram Monthly survey. In the chart above, Richards and Flautt identify the top thirty-one instances in which an MBTI type displays a high correlation with an Enneagram type (there are a total of one hundred and twenty-eight possibilities out of which these thirty-one are relevated). Twenty-five of the thirty-one identified by R/F also achieved the highest scores generated in the EM survey:
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