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There are 9 personality types in the Enneagram personality system. Each type has a designated number from 1-9.
Each person has one and only one type. This is known as that person's core type.
Although the misidentification tools should be sufficient for identifying types, there are additional components to each type that make it useful for analysis.
For instance, the triads are useful when navigating social interactions with the types.
Generally, the types like to be interacted with in different ways based on their triad membership.
In addition, each type has a primary passion and a primary fixation.
The passion describes a deficiency motivation, that is, a (perceived) emotional defecit that preempts a "grasping" response at the natural flow of experience. In other words, it is an emotional recompensation that seeks to reinstate a sense of control.
By contrast, the fixation describes a pronounced cognitive bias. This bias influences perception in such a way as to perpetuate the passion.
Finally, in addition to triads, passions, and fixations, each "core type" has perceptual, affective, and volitional characteristics.
Perceptual characteristics influence perception and attention patterns by making them more selective.
Affective characteristics are visible/observable traits which manifest emotionally or psychologically. For instance, a person's overall tone or valence.
Volitional characteristics are extensions of affective traits into the world of action. In other words, they describe behavior patterns as is measured by tangible action.
So, in summary, a type contains triads, passions, fixations, perception characteristics, affective characteristics, and volitional/behavioral characteristics.
In terms of practical utility, triads --> navigating social interactions, passions --> self-identification and systematic disidentification, fixations --> self-identification and systematic disidentification, perception characteristics --> deeper understanding that ties the type together, affective characteristics --> cultivates a deeper understanding of each type's emotional experience, behavioral characteristics --> helps predict behavior patterns in a type.
Also, it is useful to be aware of the instincts and they interact with the types. Essentially, self-preservation is focused on survival, sexual is focused on reproduction, and social is focused on one's social position. How a given individual focuses on each of these is determined firstly by their core type, and secondly by the positioning of their instincts. The dominant instinct is the one that is the most stressful to an individual, whereas the second one occupies a place of psychological importance but does not skew the individual's behavior and attention patterns quite as much. The tertiary instinct, or colloquially the "instinctual blindspot," often is neglected and placed on the proverbial backburner.