Читать книгу Enneagram For Dummies - Jeanette van Stijn - Страница 60

A stereotype is created when someone puts a label on people based on biases. Unfortunately, the personality descriptions offered by the Enneagram are well-suited for this purpose: “Now I know your type; now I know who you are.” This is a quiet shift in focus: Rather than learn more about the types, you end up seeing other people exclusively as their type. In this respect, here are some examples of such type stereotypes:

 Perfectionists have tidy apartments.

 Your apartment is tidy, so you must be a perfectionist.

 Therefore:

 You can’t be a perfectionist because your apartment is an absolute mess.

I see the internal mechanisms of the Perfectionist type in myself, but my apartment certainly isn’t tidy. Yet what's so bad about stereotypes? First, they lead to no good outcome and solve no problems. They’re superfluous. Second, they don’t let the many small details of the Enneagram type mechanisms come into effect. Certainly, some perfectionists — perhaps even many — have tidy apartments. That’s not what this is about. Other types may also prefer a tidy apartment, for different reasons. Perfectionists can keep an apparently messy household because they just don’t consider tidiness important or because tidiness doesn't correspond to their sense of order. With stereotypes comes the likelihood of missing the mark.

Finally — and most importantly — stereotypes never do justice to the individual being labeled. No one likes having stereotypical biases attached to them — even if the biases are essentially positive. At a meeting, for example, I was told by a stranger: “What I like so much about you perfectionists is that you hold on to things consistently.” This woman didn’t know me and still stuck this label on me because she knew something about perfectionists and because my Enneagram type was listed on my name tag. Although I recognize myself in the type mechanism of the Perfectionist, I definitely don’t “hold on to things consistently.” It’s annoying that other people attribute such things to you, especially if the attribution is incorrect or the other person barely knows you.