She was a tough one. I should have recognized it more clearly, because she’s the same type as one of my best friends. At first I thought she may be a an ENFP. But the proverbial shoe just didn’t fit. Part of the problem was due to psychic projection. Also, she was a younger, therefore less developed, personality. Not to mention the fact that she’s a fictional character. But it was her expectations of others that made the difference. Sally Brown, Charlie’s little sister, is an ENFJ.

The ENFJ, also known as THE TEACHER, is one of the sixteen personality types described in the MBTI system. The abbreviation stands for Extraverted-iNtuitive-Feeling-Judging. Sally is definitely extraverted. This is quite easy to see when you compare her to her introverted brother, Charlie Brown. This beloved Charles Schultz character is also intuitive, which means she views the world in terms of larger patterns and possibilities. Feelers, like Sally, make decisions based on values first and logic second. Finally, our little friend is a judger. This means that she prefers planning and security over flexibility.

The personality type, ENFJ, is identified by habitual preferences, but these four letters are also a key to unlocking the cognitive functions. These are basically a highly simplified blueprint of Sally’s, and real ENFJs’ psyche. Sally’s driving function is extraverted feeling (Fe). This function is attuned to the ambience, values, and social customs of the outside world. The navigator function is introverted intuition (Ni), which focuses on the future, possibilities, and patterns. The passenger function (10 year old in the back seat) is extraverted sensing. This less developed function takes in the outside world through the senses. It’s an in-the-moment function that is more detail oriented. The tag along (toddler in a car seat) function is the least developed in the cognitive stack. For the ENFJ, it’s extroverted thinking (Te). This function uses logic to organize and systematize the outside world.

Sally Brown’s Fe is on full display in the Peanuts Movie when she ropes Linus into dancing with her, which completely changes the atmosphere of the school dance. Her Ni is also evident in several ways – making deals to take her neighbor’s tree at Christmas time, looking to take Charlie Brown’s room from him at every turn, getting super crafty for the school talent show. Her not so well developed Se is more subtle. She is no athlete, but she’s also a younger character, so this is a bit more of a hidden trait. But for me, the underdeveloped Te was the deciding factor. It was her (judger) tendencies of having traditional expectations of others. She expected her brother to take up for her. She expected Linus to produce results during his Great Pumpkin fiasco. She even had high expectations from Snoopy when she told her neighbor to get out of her yard or she would have to sic her dog on him.

I’m sure others may have typed Sally differently, and that’s okay. They have the right to be wrong. Quite honestly I don’t question their MBTI typing abilities at all. I just don’t think that they’re big Peanuts fans. I’ve always been fascinated by the depth of these characters and how iconic each one of them are. By the way, that Se can be developed. Plenty of ENFJ’s have become accomplished athletes, but you’d be amazed how many of them are artists too.