Wellington vs the Enneagram

What is the Enneagram?

The Enneagram of personality, developed in the twentieth century from the work of Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo and popularised by later authors, describes nine types arranged on a nine-pointed figure. Each type is defined by a core motivation and fear, and the model adds wings (influence from neighbouring types) and lines of integration and disintegration. It is widely used in coaching, spiritual direction and personal growth communities, and several questionnaires exist to identify a person's type.

Its distinctive move is to organise people by why rather than by what. Two people who both keep a spotless desk are, in Enneagram terms, different if one is holding off criticism and the other is holding off chaos. That is a real and useful distinction, and it is one that trait models handle at the facet level rather than by giving each motive a number.

The model is also unusual in being a tradition rather than an instrument. There is no single official questionnaire, no single manual and no single owner, so two Enneagram tests can disagree with each other without either being a misuse of the model. That makes the evidence harder to gather than it is for a published inventory.

What does research say about the Enneagram?

A 2021 systematic review covering 104 independent samples found mixed evidence for the reliability and validity of Enneagram questionnaires and little support for the model's more specific claims, such as wings and movement between types (Hook et al., 2021). Correlations between Enneagram types and Big Five traits have been reported, which suggests the types are capturing real trait differences in a coarser form. The review's conclusion was that the model needs more and better research before strong claims can rest on it.

The review is worth reading in its own right, because it separates questions that are usually run together. Some factor-analytic work lines up partly with what the theory predicted, and type subscales relate to other measures, including the Big Five, in the directions the descriptions imply. That is a much weaker claim than showing that nine types exist, that a person belongs to exactly one, or that the lines between types describe how people behave under stress. On the structure itself the review is blunter: factor analyses typically recover fewer than nine factors, and no study has derived the nine types empirically (Hook et al., 2021).

The honest summary is mixed. Parts of the model behave as it says they should, the nine-type structure has not been demonstrated, and much of the rest has simply not been tested. That is a different position from the Big Five, which came out of decades of lexical research and survived repeated attempts to replace it (Goldberg, 1993). Where a decision matters, the weight of evidence should decide which instrument you lean on.

How do the nine types relate to measured traits?

Studies that gave people both an Enneagram inventory and a Big Five measure have generally found correlations in the directions the type descriptions imply: types written around warmth and helping relating to Agreeableness, types written around order and duty relating to Conscientiousness, types written around fear and vigilance relating to lower Emotional Stability. The review that collected this work found the evidence mixed overall, so read the pattern as suggestive (Hook et al., 2021).

This is the same story that type systems tell everywhere. The underlying differences are continuous and the type is a compression of them. Compression is not deception, and it can be a good trade when the label is being used to start a conversation. It becomes a problem when someone treats the number as a fact about themselves rather than as a summary of where several traits happened to land.

If you want the traits behind the description rather than the description, the Big Five glossary defines each dimension in plain words, and the Big Five explained covers where the model came from and what it is for.

Why does an Enneagram type feel so accurate?

Recognition is the usual reason people trust a type, and it deserves respect. Enneagram descriptions are written with unusual psychological care, and they name experiences that most questionnaires never ask about, such as the particular shame that attaches to a motive you would rather not have.

There is a second reason, and it applies to every personality description ever written. In 1949 Bertram Forer handed his students what he described as an individual sketch produced from a test they had just taken. Every student got the same text, which he had assembled from a newsstand astrology book, and the class rated it as an excellent description of themselves (Forer, 1949). Statements that could fit almost anyone read as personal when they are mildly flattering and when the reader believes the process behind them was careful.

• The test that costs nothing. Read the descriptions for the two types either side of yours. If they also fit, recognition is not telling you much.
• The test that costs a little. Ask someone who knows you well to pick your type from the nine, without telling them yours first.
• What a measured score adds. A percentile can be wrong in a way you can point at, which is what makes it possible to be right.

Why does Wellington use scores and bands instead of a number?

The traits an Enneagram description reaches for are quantities rather than kinds. Measure warmth, orderliness or vigilance in a large sample and the scores fall into a bell, thick through the middle and thin at both edges.

Because that curve has no natural joint, a nine-way division is laid over it, and laying it there costs the distance between a person and the line they sat closest to. Someone near a line can answer again after a quiet month and be given the number next door. Where type scales have been measured against trait inventories they turned out to be continuous dimensions with no distinct types inside them (McCrae & Costa, 1989), on a structure decades of descriptive research had already mapped (Goldberg, 1993).

Wellington keeps the distance visible. Each dimension is reported as a percentile against a reference sample and then placed in one of three bands with published cut-offs: Quiet as far as the 30th percentile, Balanced to the 70th, High above it, on norms provisional until the norming sample is complete. The bands and the Portrait names exist to make the result easier to talk about; the percentile is the measurement, and it is always shown alongside.

A name still helps, so the pattern of bands is summarised as a named Portrait, drawn from the scores rather than substituted for them. The name is for practicality. The numbers are the measurement.

What does Wellington do instead?

Wellington is a science-based personality assessment from Therabot Labs LLC. It measures personality as continuous traits, built on the Big Five and HEXACO models, and writes the results back as a personal report rather than a type.

Rather than a type and a motivation, Wellington gives you a position on each of 6 broad dimensions in the free Snapshot and on 90 traits with the membership, including the 24 VIA character strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), which cover much of the ground the Enneagram reaches for: courage, humanity, temperance, transcendence. Each trait has a written page for your band and, for the traits at your growth edge, a small weekly practice.

The free Snapshot is 60 questions and about 7 minutes. Each dimension is the average of several statements rated on a five-point accuracy scale, placed against a reference sample as a percentile and reported in one of three bands: Quiet below the 30th percentile, Balanced to the 70th, High above it. The norms are provisional until the norming sample is complete. The first ten questions are answered before anything is asked of you; after question ten you sign in with an email so your answers are saved and your results can be shown. No card is needed.

Trait scores earn their keep because they have been followed over long periods. Personality traits as a set predict outcomes such as mortality, divorce and occupational attainment about as well as socioeconomic status or measured intelligence do (Roberts et al., 2007). That is a modest claim held up by a lot of data, and it is the kind of claim Wellington is built to make. Wellington is a wellness tool for reflection, not a medical or psychological diagnosis, and it does not replace care from a qualified professional.

What is the Enneagram still good for?

It is good at the question trait models are worst at. A percentile tells you that you are high on Conscientiousness, and says nothing about what you are holding off when you behave that way. The Enneagram's vocabulary of core fears and desires gives people a way to talk about motive that they rarely find elsewhere, and in coaching and spiritual direction that vocabulary does real work.

It is also good at community. Type language spreads easily, and a shared language lowers the cost of talking about difficult things at work or in a family. None of that requires the nine types to be literally true, and the people who use the Enneagram best tend to hold it lightly.

What it should not be used for is selection, screening or any decision about another person's future. That restriction applies to Wellington too, and to every instrument covered in the best personality tests, compared.

Side by side

People who love the Enneagram often love it for the questions it asks about why. Wellington is stronger at what: what your traits are, where they sit, and what a small change would look like.

The two can sit alongside each other. Keep the type as a story about motive, and use a trait profile for anything you want to track, compare or act on. How accurate are personality tests explains the standard both should be held to.

Questions people ask

Is the Enneagram scientifically validated?

Not well, so far. A systematic review of 104 independent samples found mixed evidence for the reliability and validity of Enneagram questionnaires, factor analyses that typically recover fewer than nine factors, and little support for the claims about wings and movement between types (Hook et al., 2021). Enneagram subscales do correlate with the Big Five in the expected directions, which suggests they reflect real differences in a coarser form.

Can Wellington tell me my Enneagram type?

No. The frameworks are different, and Wellington does not map its traits onto the nine types, because no validated crosswalk exists to map them with. What it can do is measure the traits an Enneagram type gestures at, and report where you sit on each of them against a reference sample rather than assigning you a number.

Which is better for personal growth?

That depends on what you want from it. The Enneagram offers a narrative about motivation, which is the question trait models are weakest on, and that narrative does real work in coaching. Wellington identifies your growth edges from your actual scores, attaches a small practice to each, and, in the Wellington Membership, retests them so you can see whether anything moved.

Why do different Enneagram tests give me different types?

Because there is no single official instrument. Different authors write different items for the same nine types, and a systematic review found the reliability and validity evidence for those questionnaires to be limited and mixed (Hook et al., 2021). If two tests disagree, neither result is being misused; the model simply does not pin down one answer.

Does a type change over time?

Most Enneagram teaching says the core type is fixed for life and only its expression changes, which is a claim the published research has not tested well (Hook et al., 2021). Measured traits behave differently. Rank order is fairly stable and becomes more so with age, without ever being complete (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000), so a percentile can move slowly and visibly rather than being fixed by definition.