The Fear and Behaviour of the Five

The primary fear of the Five is of being useless, incapable and incompetent. As a result, knowledge is very important to them. Fives what to know why something is as it is, using their curiosity to understand things and often to become an expert at something. Mastering something (whatever it may be) gives them the confidence to come out of their shells and participate in the world. Their powers of concentration and clarity of thought mean that they can often come up with new insights or see something in a startling new way. When they are less healthy and less present to themselves, however, their security is rooted solely in their ideas and they become antagonistic towards anyone or anything that interferes with them. They become arrogant and provocative, seeking to undermine anyone who, as they see it, is not understanding things properly. Even if the Five may sometimes have good reason to believe they know more, their need, at this stage, to feel intellectually superior means that they write off others' ideas or dismiss other people as 'not knowing what they're talking about'. Such treatment makes those people feel how the Five most fears to feel - useless, incapable and incompetent.