Examining the effect of Enneagram competence on empathy in college students.

The Enneagram is a personality system that describes nine personality types with distinct underlying motivations that drive behavior. The Enneagram exists to help people understand themselves and others, so the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between college students’ understanding of the Enneagram and empathy–their ability and motivation to understand and appropriately react to others and their experiences. Empathy is a component of morality that is associated with many prosocial behaviors that higher education hopes to develop in students. This study created a measurement of Enneagram Competence and examined its relationship to levels of empathy. Findings found that Enneagram Competence significantly predicted empathy levels in college students and suggest that students need to use the Enneagram in their personal lives and relationships to raise empathy levels. Furthermore, this study shows that knowing the Enneagram without putting it into practice may do more harm than good.