Here are three type-confirming questions for each Enneagram type, to be used once a person has done a preliminary identification of his or her type. These questions can also be used to help individuals who have narrowed down their type to two enneatypes. The answers to the three questions need to be a firm “yes” to confirm type!

Three typing-confirming questions for Ones
1. Do you have an inner voice – akin to a tape recorder in your head – that continuously criticizes you (90% of the time or more) for what you do wrong and sometimes applauds you when something goes exceedingly well?
2. Do you have a constant need for self-improvement, while knowing that no one will ever be perfect, not even you?
3. Do you have a very hard time relaxing, having fun, and getting away from your responsibilities unless you are on vacation?

Three typing-confirming questions for Twos
1. Do you intuitively know what someone else needs but have a hard time articulating your own needs, even to yourself?
2. If you’re completely honest, do you believe that you can get almost any one to like you if you really want to?
3. Do you feel really good when others respond to you in the way that you most want, but particularly deflated when this does not occur?

Three typing-confirming questions for Threes
1. Do you do the things you do to impress others so that they will value and respect you?
2. Are you so busy “doing” things that you don’t even know what simply “being” means?
3. Do you avoid failure by engaging only in activities you will be good at, focusing on goals and making sure you achieve them, and reframing failure by calling it “a learning experience”?

Three typing-confirming questions for Fours
1. When you feel something very strongly, do you hold onto your emotions intensely for extremely long periods of time, constantly replaying your thoughts, feelings, and sensations?
2. Do you think of melancholy as a pleasurable experience?
3. Do you continually search for deep connections with others and feel distraught when these connections become severed?

Three typing-confirming questions for Fives
1. When a situation gets emotional, intense, or overwhelming, do you automatically disconnect from your feelings of the moment and then reconnect with some of these later, at a time and place of your choice?
2. Do you observe life rather than being fully engaged in it?
3. Do you create an invisible boundary between yourself and others so that other people understand they should not approach you unless invited to do so?

Three typing-confirming questions for Sixes
1. Do you constantly anticipate multiple scenarios, thinking about what could go wrong and trying to plan so that this will not occur?
2. Do you have strong positive or negative reactions to authority figures and challenge them when you are concerned?
3. Do you project your thoughts and feelings onto others, having difficulty discerning whether something is really occurring or whether you are creating it in your mind?

Three typing-confirming questions for Sevens
1. Do you continuously seek new and stimulating people, ideas, or events to keep life exciting, adrenalized, and forward moving?
2. Do you avoid pain and discomfort whenever possible, using your mind to conjure up new possibilities and plans and to reframe negative situations so they can be seen as positive?
3. Do you have trouble sustaining your focus on work projects, people, and conversations without a considerable amount of effort on your part?

Three typing-confirming questions for Eights
1. Do you have an extraordinarily strong and bold exterior, one that is sometimes intimidating to others (intentionally or unintentionally) but that hides a less visible but highly vulnerable interior?
2. Do you tend to be excessive in what you do – for example, exercising two to three hours a day for a week but then not exercising for a month, or deciding that if one piece of chocolate cake is good, then eating the whole cake is even better?
3. Do you have immediate impulses to take strong and forceful action, particularly when you are feeling anxious or vulnerable?

Three typing-confirming questions for Nines
1. Do you automatically blend or merge with other people’s positive energy but get distressed when you are around negativity, anger, and conflict that can’t be resolved?
2. Do people find you easy to approach and nonjudgmental in almost all circumstances?
3. Do you have great difficulty expressing your opinions, particularly if they may be controversial in some way?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda PhD, the author of five best-selling Enneagram-business books, is a speaker, consultant, trainer, and coach. She provides certification programs for professionals around the world who want to bring the Enneagram into organizations with high-impact business applications, and is past-president of the International Enneagram Association. Visit her website: TheEnneagramInBusiness.com. ginger@theenneagraminbusiness.com