Roles People Play and Personality Type

William James introduced the concept of a mental “stream of consciousness”.  The mental stream of consciousness contains information about changes observed and experienced by a person. What type of information contents should we expect to find in the conscious mind? 

Philosopher Mortimer Adler answered this question by naming the three categories of objects that we can know about in direct experience. They are the real, subjective and intentional objects types. The stream of consciousness contains information about real  objects in the public domain that can be observed by any person, information about subjective objects in the private domain that can observed only by the subject agent, and information about intentional objects that are created by symbolic language when one mental image is successfully communicated from one person's mind to another person's mind and understood.

Psychologist Carl Jung answered this question two ways. First he identified two directions for placing attention on real public or subjective private objects. These directions are the extraverted-E and introverted-I attitude. Second, he identified four mental functions of consciousness (S, N, T, F) that are specialized for processing information about public and private objects of attention. These four functions of consciousness are empirical perception by sensation-S and intuition-N functions, and rational judgment by thinking-T and feeling-F functions. These two attitudes (E, I) and four functions (S, N, T, F) are well known because they form the theoretical foundation for the widely used MBTI Myers Briggs Type Indicator.

Eight Jungian psychological function types are formed by the two directions of attention and four functions of consciousness. The four extraverted function types are Sr, Nr, Tr and Fr where the subscript "r" indicates real (r) object-events in public view and the four introverted function types are Ss, Ns, Ts and Fs where the subscript "s"indicates subjective (s) object-events in private view.

One out of sixteen MBTI Personality Types can be identified when the MBTI self-report is used to test a person's preference for one side of the four preference pairs E vs I, S vs N, T vs F and J vs P. 

One out of nine Enneagram Personality Types can be identified when the RHETI self-report is used to test a person's score for the available types: One-Reformer, Two-Helper, Three-Achiever, Four-Individualist, Five-Investigator, Six-Loyalist, Seven-Enthusiast, Eight-Challenger and Nine-Peacemaker.

The MBTI test instrument is designed to test for the assumed consciously used Jungian psychological functions and the RHETI is designed to test for automatically used or unconscious mental functions. These two personality systems are fundamentally different. Jung and MBTI begin with the conscious mind and enneagram personality types begin with the unconscious mind and automatic emotions or passions. However, it is possible to identify one out of eight conscious Jungian function types to account for the dominant well differentiated mental activity that is attributed theoretically to eight of the nine enneagram personality roles when they are operating consciously and voluntarily. Almost any unconscious or undifferentiated Jungian function (S,N, T, F) can be attracted to each enneagram type.

Enneagram Personality Type Three-The Achiever or Motivator does not fit into a Jungian category for the simple reason that Jung only accounted for real and subjective object type information processing.  Jung and MBTI omits the intentional object type category that must be present to account for a complete system.  The Three - Achiever or Motivator is an intentional function type. It is neither extraverted nor introverted, but a hybrid synthesis of both as defined by Adler.  

Needless to say care must be taken to interpret the results of any personality type test. It is helpful to administer both the MBTI and the RHETI to the same person and then give individual feedback while engaging that person in dialog.

What is your experience with MBTI and Enneagram self-reports of Personality Type?