Pixar ESTP - Riley Andersen

Today's MBTI discussion will be about the other Se dominant personality type, the ESTP.  Featuring Riley Anderson of Disney-Pixar's Inside Out.  Now, there have been many ESTP protagonists in Disney and Pixar films, including Lightning McQueen (yes, he is an extrovert).  But I've chosen to focus on Riley today because she is an example of a personality type fully emerging as a child approaches puberty.

Dominant Se - Extroverted sensing.  Most of our childhood is spent developing our dominant cognitive function.  And while Riley's lead emotion, Joy, is an Ne dominant herself, she makes sure Riley spends most of her time living fully in the moment.  Thus it becomes pretty clear early on that Riley is an Se dominant.  Riley's world is highly sensory.  She knows precisely what she likes and dislikes (thanks to Disgust), and she knows how to get what she wants when she wants it (thanks to Anger).  Riley is a go-getter, and is hardly embarrassed by minor slip ups.  Se, like Ne, is a happy-go-lucky function, but unlike Ne prefers to be happy in the moment, rather than focusing on a variety of what-ifs.  And while we do get a tour through Riley's imagination, the fact that she does not rely heavily on her imagination once she reaches age 11, instead relying on what she sees in front of her, demonstrates Ne's gradual sink down to the very bottom of her function stack.  Not that Riley will one day be unable to imagine anything, but it will no longer be one of her go-to functions.

Auxiliary Ti - Introverted thinking.  Riley is approaching puberty, and with it comes the development of a new function.  After developing her Se, Riley switched between Fi and Ti until finally settling on the latter.  She will spend the remainder of her adolescence developing this secondary function.  While Fi was the function that likely resulted in Honesty Island, it is Ti that Riley uses to maintain it.  Ti is logical, analytical and objective, and so is truth.  When she lies, steals and runs away from home, Riley firmly shuts down the use of Ti and Fi.  It is Ti that manifests when she comes to her senses, causing her to realize how irrational she is being, and allowing her to return.  As this function develops, it will work with Se to make Riley an increasingly competitive, determined, loyal young woman.  And as Ti simply loves to snark, those curse words Anger is so excited about are liable to get plenty of use and cause lots of epic burns.

Tertiary Fe - Extroverted feeling.  Empathy is the name of the game for Fe, and as it is Sadness' auxiliary function, she will be the one responsible for helping Riley develop this function as her tertiary.  Fe acts as the balance to the analytical and snarky Ti, helping it to recognize when it has gone too far and done more harm than good.  Riley will show shades of this as she gets older, especially when using the "friendly arguments" section of Friendship Island.  Like Ti, Fe actually prefers emotional stability, so Joy need not worry about losing her position as lead emotion, even if she has learned to work with her own complement, the INFJ Sadness.  As Riley's Fe really develops toward the end of her adolescence, she will learn to demonstrate an important aspect of loyalty toward her friends; being there to listen to them as they work through their problems, and to fiercely defend them when needed.

Inferior Ni - Introverted intuition.  This is the gut instinct and singular focus function, and in Riley it manifests on the ice.  As it is her inferior function, it is very underdeveloped in her at 11, and will not truly begin to develop until she is well into adulthood.  Until then, she will display Ni's weaknesses far more often than its strengths.  While she is perfectly able to focus, Riley lives almost entirely in the present, and gives precious little thought to the consequences of her actions, despite the efforts of Fear to teach her (though Fear himself is an INTP, and as such uses Ne rather than Ni).  Riley only ever relies on her gut instinct during a hockey game, and even then it sometimes fails her.  As an adult, she will struggle with learning to rely on her gut, but if she becomes a parent, learning to trust her gut will come much easier to her than she expected.