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Beatrice Chestnut

The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

Fours and Sevens share some traits in common that can make them look alike. Both types are very idealistic, with Fours focusing on ideals of love and connection, and Sevens focusing more on envisioning the ideal in a wider array of imaginative realms. Most notably, Fours and Sevens both appreciate and seek out intense and stimulating experiences. Fours do this because they live from their feelings, they appreciate the rich experience of deeply felt emotion and passionate connections with other people, and they dislike mundane experience. Sevens pursue intensity and stimulation because they want to keep their mood up and their experiences fun and positive as a way of moving away from less positive, less intense, potentially empty, boring, or unpleasant alternatives. In this, both types have an aversion to the everyday, the mundane, and the ordinary, finding this realm of experience potentially empty and thus boring or even anxiety producing. Both Fours and Sevens value creativity and self-expression, Fours because they want to be seen and understood as special and unique and because they appreciate aesthetics and artistry, and Sevens because they are natural visionaries who imagine varied future possibilities, have many interests and ideas, and appreciate the stimulating and exciting aspects of creative expression.

In relating to others, both Fours and Sevens are self-referencing; that is, they both focus their attention more on their own experience as opposed to focusing primarily on others. When Fours pay attention to their own experience, they usually do so in an emotional way, focusing on their feelings and moods. When Sevens focus attention on themselves, however, they most often focus on their thoughts, future plans, and desires for amusement and pleasurable experiences, and they look to the outside world for entertainment opportunities. Both Fours and Sevens can also be sensitive to criticism, with Fours feeling criticism as an extra blow to their already diminished sense of themselves as not good enough, and Sevens experiencing it as a hurtful interruption of their youthful desire to focus on what’s positive.

Fours and Sevens also differ in specific ways. Although both styles are idealistic, Sevens tend to be relentlessly optimistic and Fours can be somewhat pessimistic, especially to the outside observer, as Fours tend to draw attention to what is missing. Also, Fours and Sevens have very different profiles when it comes to their experience of feelings. Sevens tend to focus on and dwell in positive feelings, naturally having very upbeat, happy temperaments. Connected to this, Sevens can have a difficult time staying with more difficult emotions, such as sadness or discomfort. Fours, on the other hand, are more comfortable with a wide range of emotions and tend to feel darker feelings like disappointment or melancholy more regularly and more comfortably. Similarly, Sevens often reframe negatives into positives, while Fours can feel irritated when people tell them to “look on the bright side.” Fours have a tendency to focus on what is missing or unavailable that they would like to have or be, and this leads them to be more aware of the negative side of situations, issues, and relationships.

Fours comfort with feelings makes them good supporters of others who are experiencing difficulties, while Sevens have a harder time being with and empathizing with others who are in pain. Sevens feel challenged by dealing with suffering, feeling much more comfort and ease focusing on positive feelings. Conversely, Fours can find richness in suffering and see it as a real and valuable part of human experience. Furthermore, Fours seek deep connections with others based on the sharing of authentic feelings, whereas Sevens can feel hesitant about making commitments and exploring relationships on a deep emotional level because they dislike feeling limited and so tend to move away from engaging too deeply with others at times. Lastly, Fours value authenticity and depth, while Sevens prioritize charm and a positive, fun-loving presentation (which Fours can find superficial or insincere).

The Enneagram Institute

Misidentifications

Fours and Sevens are vastly different, and except for a superficial similarity at Level 6 of both types, it would be difficult to see how anyone familiar with both could misidentify them for long.

It seems, however, that the basis for mistaking them is that both types tend to be excessive–Sevens go to extremes in the external, material world with the lavishness and number of possessions and experiences they acquire. Highly materialistic, Sevens tend to become jaded and hardened, insensitive and demanding, selfish and uncaring about others. At Level 6, we have characterized them as The Excessive Materialist.

Fours at the same Level (The Self-Indulgent Aesthete) are also excessive and go to extremes, although emotional extremes. Emotionally self-indulgent, average Fours go for the big emotional charge in their fantasy lives, allowing themselves to feel and imagine anything, no matter how ultimately unrealistic or emotionally debilitating it might be. They wallow in their feelings and fantasies, squeezing the last breath of life from them to reinforce their sense of self. Thus the Four's self-indulgences are more internal and private, centered on the emotional world they inhabit. Outwardly, their emotional excess is expressed in an increasing preciosity and impracticality, an effete, over ripe decadence and sensuality that is the main point of similarity between the two types. While both types may become decadent and sensual, Sevens do so to dissipate themselves and thus flee from anxiety. By contrast, Fours embrace sensuality, luxuriating in sex or drink or drugs to heighten their emotions and to deaden the pain of their self-consciousness.

Both types share a love of fine, expensive things, although here too there are differences. Fours make do with fewer material things, cherishing beautiful objects for the sake of their beauty and the feelings that beauty awakens in them. A stone picked up on the beach or a twig with a single bud can quicken their aesthetic feelings and satisfy them. By contrast, while average Sevens want to possess beautiful objects, they become increasingly unappreciative and insensitive to the beauty or value of those objects. They become acquisitive not because they enjoy things for themselves but because possessing things provides a sense of security. And even more fundamentally, what excites Sevens is the stimulation they feel when they desire something new. The stimulation of their appetites reinforces their sense of self, although once they have actually acquired what they want, they usually lose interest in the acquisition. The pair of shoes that they were "dying" to have joins the racks with dozens of others; the fur coat they were drooling over for weeks suddenly becomes "that old thing" as they turn their attention to acquiring something else. In short, average Sevens tend to be acquisitive materialists, while average Fours tend to be languishing aesthetes–very different types. Compare the styles of Bob Dylan (a Four) and of Elton John (a Seven) and those of Ingmar Bergman (a Four) with Steven Spielberg (a Seven) to understand the difference.