Why does Enneagram type Three get so much hate?

In the real world, Enneagram Threes are many times the people who are most looked up to, as they are often successful in what they do. In much of popular Enneagram discourse, however, Three is the type most demonized. Why do people hate Enneagram Threes?

Threes are portrayed as fake. They want other people to admire them and sell their soul to become successful, or just to appear successful. They lie, they pretend, they cheat. They are narcissistic, image-oriented, self-promoting, competitive, and superficial. They rely on external validation because inside they are empty: they have no feelings or true sense of self. And so on – I think you got the point.

If you, like many others, were introduced to the Enneagram by reading the book The Road Back to You by Ian Cron, you know exactly what I mean. Its chapter on Threes starts with a story about the author’s father who, even after having lost his career, would always brag about and inflate his (past) successes to gain love and admiration from others. In whatever crowd he would find himself, he could instantly turn into the person he thought they would admire most.

From his son, though, this behavior would gain him nothing but contempt: the author himself is a type Four, who values authenticity above everything.

But, the author adds, don’t think of Threes too negatively: they might be poseurs, but don’t you feel compassion toward my father for believing that looking successful was the only way he could feel worthy? Aren’t you sorry for him for not being able to distinguish his fake image from his authentic self anymore? The message is: do not admire Threes – pity them. In this book, even the healthy (most developed) Threes are primarily described in terms of what they are not instead of how they can be great people in their own right who add enormous value to the world.

Let me give it a try. Type Three is nicknamed the Performer. They are driven, efficient, pragmatic, goal-oriented, and as such are great role models and motivators for others. Ask a Three and it will get done. Like a chameleon, they can be and do everything, because they believe in themselves. They strive to become the best they can be, and along with that they achieve great things in the world: they move us all forward in return for mere praise and applause.

Sure enough, the Enneagram is about uncovering both the beautiful and the ugly sides of people. But very often when we hear Enneagram enthusiasts talk about Threes, the focus is on fakeness, deceit, and emptiness.

Maybe it is because we all recognize Three tendencies in our style-over-substance world as well as in ourselves. We all like recognition and are all to an extent involved in creating or maintaining a sense of identity. For the three types in the Feeling Triad (Two, Three, and Four), though, this is their primary concern. These types want to find self-worth and tend to reject their authentic self in favor of a self-image they believe is more valuable.

Type Two (the Helper) looks primarily outside themselves to find in others a confirmation that they are selfless and loving human beings. Type Four (the Individualist) is in some ways the opposite of a Two: they are never quite sure who they really are, and turn inward attempting to find their authentic self, supposedly free from any outside influence and intrinsically different from others. The image they want others to have of them is ‘different’ or ‘special’.

Threes take this to the next level (as Threes do with everything). While Twos direct their energy outward and Fours inward, Threes do both. Like Twos, they want external affirmation, and hope to get this through accomplishing things they think are valued by others. But like Fours, they also create an idealized picture of the person they are or want to become in their mind and continually work to actualize this.

Threes keep up an image both to others and to themselves, which involves putting their own feelings and desires aside in order to be more efficient and effective. This makes this type potentially the most out of touch with their own true self. The ‘sin’ of type Three is deceit: they make others and themselves believe that they are a certain persona. Eventually, they might forget who they are behind that image, which can become their only reality.

But here’s the thing: no other type gets so wholly identified with its sin as Threes. And while a Three’s deceit is not a purposeful dishonesty, we do often understand it in that way.

Compare Three to its neighbor, type Two, about whom we almost never hear a negative word. But as a fellow Feeling Triad type, let’s look at the overlap with Threes: Twos pretend to be altruistic as they are actually driven by the egoistic motivation that they want to be loved. They are vain because they think of themselves as better people than others; they pride themselves in helping others while not needing help from anyone themselves. Yet you never hear someone describing Twos as fake or pitiful people.

Every type has their ugly sides. Is the demonization of Threes maybe driven by envy for their success? Is it okay to bash Threes because they appear invulnerable and are already admired enough? Do we want to rail against our culture’s glorification of Three behavior? Or are there just too few Threes in the Enneagram community to strike back (because who needs self development when you are successful)?

It could be all of that, and this: everyone who works with the Enneagram is on a profound level interested in finding and understanding their true self and identity, and the unhealthy Three represents the complete opposite of that. In healthy levels, though, types move towards their virtue, which for the Three is authenticity. In that way, Threes epitomize the quest that all of us are on.