Here’s Your Personal Vice, Based on Your Enneagram Type

Vices are deep-seated imperfections in our character and personality. They are often rooted in our attachment styles from childhood and tied into our development through each life stage of psycho-social development.

During times of stress or emotional havoc, our personal vices can emerge without warning. And they’ll come around full-swing, surprising those close to you—and possibly even yourself!

What’s your personal vice, based on your Enneagram type? Let’s find out:

Not sure what your enneagram type is? Take our new personality questionnaire here!

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Enneatype 1 – Anger

While rarely bubbling up to rage, anger about the injustices of the world can drive you ballistic.

When your personal vice shows up, you:

• Become irritated and judgmental
• Nit-pick others’ wrongdoings
• Jump to conclusions on limited data
• Tap impatiently, or express similar non-verbal body movements
• Invoke arguments and insist on winning and getting the final say
• Project anger onto others and leave them hurt or confused

Enneatype 2 – Pride

Flattery and praise rev up your ego and fulfill your need to gain recognition for your efforts. You want to take care of people, encourage them, and support them. But during stressful states you feel like you must get praise or affirmation back in return.

When your personal vice shows up, you:

• Take extra credit for all relationships
• Overcompensate self to meet others’ needs
• Aggressively attack those who reject your advances
• Become more social to gain more friends
• Expand your social circles with charm and flattery
• Develop a martyr complex

Enneatype 3 – Deceit

Life is your stage, and you play the leading role. You adopt multiple different personas to cope with each situation and convince yourself that everything is “going well”.

When your personal vice shows up, you:

• Wear yourself out through work and socialization
• Plaster on a smile to hide your true feelings
• Fool yourself into being ‘fine’ through denial
• Do anything to convince others you’re thriving
• Fake stories and experiences to protect your image
• Spruce up social media presence to curate an ‘ideal’ highlight reel

Enneatype 4 – Envy

Your ego juggles a balancing act between wanting to remain authentic to your true identity and wishing to adopt the perceived positive characteristics of another individual.

When your personal vice shows up, you:

• Make upward and downward comparisons
• Blast passive-aggressive and indirect attacks through words
• Become self-loathing and struggle with a poor self-esteem
• Fight a critical inner voice that says, “You’re simply not special enough.”
• Take a long hiatus from social media and communication to find yourself
• Go to great lengths and explore avant-garde concepts to differentiate yourself from the crowd

Enneatype 5 – Avarice

You “hoard” space and isolation and avoid accumulating additional responsibilities. You minimize your needs to carve out more resources for yourself.

When your personal vice shows up, you:

• Withdraw into isolation and reclusiveness
• Avoid others, often for weeks
• Rationalize that you can live without relationships or interactions
• Escape to other safer mental fantasies and realms to feel secure
• Donate unused goods and unread books around the house
• Leave social media and quit all platforms cold turkey

Enneatype 6 – Fear

You see threats everywhere and become skeptical of everything around you. You are hyper-vigilant to any chance of making a mistake—and try your best to fly under the radar when possible.

When your personal vice shows up, you:

• Subject each of your actions to scrutiny and doubt
• Develop headaches from over-thinking others’ intentions
• Experience cold sweats and a racing pulse
• Lose touch with what’s real or imagined
• Convince yourself that you’re destined to fail
• Struggle with debilitating worries about yourself and future

Enneatype 7 – Gluttony

Your vices tend to revolve around self-indulgence or distraction-seeking. Rather than tending to your responsibilities or creating a stable life, you seek escape or distraction through activity, impulsive experiences, and pleasure.

When your personal vice shows up, you may:

• Use drugs and stimulants to excessive extents
• Behave recklessly with drinking and/or spending habits (sometimes all at once)
• Put yourself in dangerous situations for the sake of the thrill
• Struggle to cope with the mundane aspects of everyday life
• Pay more attention to pleasure than health
• Refuse to give in to any coherent line of thought or belief

Enneatype 8 – Lust

A lust for life, power, or meaning? Your personal vice takes the cake for all of them. Under pressure, you focus on what you can change immediately: your tone and approach. Sometimes, your forcefulness can push (read: scare) others away.

When your personal vice shows up, you:

• Are forceful when dealing with others
• Adopt black-and-white thinking: with me or against me
• Abruptly cut of ties and burn bridges
• Possess a superiority complex
• Give others rigid requests and ultimatums
• Are blind-sighted to sympathy and empathy

Enneatype 9 – Sloth

Bruno Mars has a whole (rather upbeat) song on the feeling: “Today I don’t feel like doing anything…I just wanna lay in my bed…don’t feel like picking up my phone, so leave a message at the tone…nothing at all.” You’ve probably related to this song during different periods of your life.

When your personal vice shows up, you:

• Struggle with chronic procrastination
• Experience lethargy and indolence
• Possess an indifferent outlook towards life
• Repress anger and frustration
• Completely detach from reality
• Struggle to stand up for yourself or even realize your own true desires.

Summing It Up…

Vices are the blind spots and deep-seated limitations hidden deep in our egos. They tend to emerge out of the blue, during times of extreme distress through surprising bursts of emotions, waves of insomnia, or even a notable shift in your behavior.

How does your personal vice show up in your life? What healthy strategies have you learned along the way to nudge your ego into growth? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Discover More About the Enneagram:

What is the Enneagram?

Here’s What You Fear, Based on Your Enneagram Type

Here’s What You Desperately Crave in Life, Based on Your Enneagram Type

The Hidden Talents of Every Enneagram Type

About the Author: Lily Yuan is a personality psychology writer who has a knack for just missing the bus. She tests as INTP in the Myers-Briggs system, and 5w4 in the enneagram, and she constantly questions her type. Learn more at her personality psychology web site.