Myers-Briggs Types in Young Sheldon: Sheldon Cooper (ISTJ)

Sheldon Cooper, whether from Young Sheldon or The Big Bang Theory, seems to be somewhat of a controversial character. Many identify Sheldon Cooper’s Myers-Briggs personality type as one of the intuitives, usually INTP, but sometimes INTJ. To be clear, this article is specific to the version of Sheldon Cooper from the Young Sheldon series. We’ll be writing an article on his original version in the near future, and handling it completely separate from this version. (We do this in case of show inconsistencies.) In Young Sheldon, there is a wealth of evidence indicating that Sheldon Cooper is an ISTJ, and we’ll be giving you a detailed cognitive function breakdown below to support this position. If you’re interested in looking into any other characters from Young Sheldon, check out The Myers-Briggs Personality Types in Young Sheldon.

The Myers-Briggs Personality Type of Young Sheldon Cooper

Dominant Si:

“I’ve put together a presentation detailing the reasons why I should be allowed to go to college, and I’d like you to watch it with an open mind.”

“I didn’t like seeing him upset, but what can you do? I love consistency.”

“I’m not a fan of change. I feel like you just jumped a shark.”

“Since when is it pancake Sunday? …It’s Kellogg’s Bran Buds Sunday, like it’s been for the past three years.”

Young Sheldon struggles greatly with any kind of change. This is both on a grand scale, and in minor, daily things. For instance, at one point, he detects the tiniest change in taste to his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, refusing to eat it. He then exerts a lot of effort to figure out exactly what part of the sandwich is wrong. Once he learns that it’s the bread, he investigates why and then crusades against the company for changing the product. As a result of his hyper-specific preferences, his mother is careful to make sure she always does things precisely the way he wants them.

As a result of his dislike for change, Sheldon prefers consistency. He adheres to his routines and traditions over long periods of time, disliking any deviations to them whatsoever. For instance, he creates himself a bathroom schedule that everyone has to work around. He’s completely inflexible in regard to this. Similarly, his mother tries to start a “Pancake Sunday” and Sheldon immediately points out that it can’t be Pancake Sunday because it’s been “Kellogg’s Bran Buds Sunday” for the past three years.

Sheldon prioritizes his security, which, as most of Sheldon personality traits, manifests in an extreme way. He does everything carefully and cautiously, being sure to follow any and all rules. As a result, on the rare occasion that Sheldon does break a rule, his mother never realizes it until he either confesses or someone else points it out. Of course, Sheldon makes sure to read all the rules for everything. He’s appalled, or at least very upset, when anyone breaks the rules even in the slightest (such as the school dress code).

Sheldon is extremely detail-oriented and specific. He loves memorizing information and sharing that information. He also has a propensity for coming up with lists to, for instance, support his case for staying at the college overnight. Once he starts sharing the list, he feels a compulsive need to share the entire thing, even if the person agrees after the first point. Similarly, he likes drawing up detailed contracts for himself and others to clearly define the rules of engagement so that nothing is left vague or open-ended.

Auxiliary Te:

“When I was feeling anxious, it was rules and structure that I found soothing.”

“Not just playing with others kids, controlling every aspect of their destiny as their Dungeon Master overlord. I didn’t believe in God, but I sure loved acting like one.”

“I started working on this presentation to address specific ethical dilemmas. The laws of robotics, whether torture can be justified, and cloning people for fun and spare parts. But I realized before resolving these moral quandaries, the real decision is who gets to decide. Do we put it up for a vote? Does everyone get to decide for themselves? Should it be by committee? Is that committee elected or appointed? You see where I’m going? You probably don’t. For the smartest decision, we need the smartest person. Ladies and gentlemen, in the field of scientific ethics, we can’t rely on democracy or plutocracy. We need an autocracy. Or to be more precise, a Sheldocracy.”

“You know there’s a more spatially efficient way to do that.”

Sheldon highly values order and structure. He is very easily bothered when others are chaotic and don’t follow an efficient way of doing things. He is not shy to share his opinions about this, either. For example, when he watches his father load the dishwasher, Sheldon immediately comments that there’s a more efficient way to do it. Of course, Sheldon loves being in control, which is partly why everyone find him so annoying. He frequently bosses people around, and tries to assert his will. Sheldon’s love for control is demonstrated especially clearly when he shares his feelings about being a dungeon master. He revels in being able to control every aspect of the player’s destiny.

While mainly verbal, Sheldon does quite a bit in the way of trying to enforce rules and structure upon his environment. When he sees other’s breaking rules, he immediately points it out. At East Texas Tech, he goes to the school president when the dorm supervisor refuses to enforce the rules, which leads to Sheldon being granted the position instead. He thinks that his new position will make the others listen to him, but it just leads to him getting taped to a wall. However, this does not deter Sheldon, as he proclaims that he will remember all the names and who did what.

When presented with an ethical dilemma assignment, Sheldon struggles with the ambiguity. He tries to find a clear-cut, black-and-white stance to argue, but Dr. Sturgis keeps injecting arguments that demonstrate why every stance might not be so straightforward. This leads Sheldon to ultimately loops his reasoning back to a place of greater comfort for him. He rationalizes that ethics can’t be established without first establishing a structure to determine what is ethical and what is not. He then proclaims that there must be an absolute authority, or an arbiter, to make those decisions. Of course, he declares that he’s the best choice for that position, and that a “Sheldocracy” should be established.

Tertiary Fi:

“Will you please stop focusing on what you don’t have and try to focus on what I don’t have?”

“Really? That’s all it took? Where’s the loyalty? …I know, but what if somebody comes along and offers him more money? Is he just gonna leave us?”

Sheldon is practically incapable of understanding the feelings of others within any context other than his own personal feelings on things. While he’s not exactly focused on his feelings, he has a basic awareness of what he’s feelings and how things affect him emotionally. However, he lacks any awareness concerning the feelings of others. Similarily, he tends to project his own preferences and beliefs on other people, and struggles when others don’t agree with what he thinks. He primarily focuses on how things will affect him, being blind to how what he wants impacts other people. He never gives a passing thought to the notion that asking others to do things for him would be inconvenient for them.

This is especially highlighted in his relationship with Dr. Linkletter. Sheldon seems completely oblivious to the fact that he is annoying him. It doesn’t so much as cross his mind that Dr. Linkletter doesn’t want him around all the time. Even when Dr. Linklettter spells it out in clear terms, Sheldon brushes it off, proclaiming that every loves being around him. His struggles with identifying sarcasm only further cements his personal, positive outlook on himself. When some backhanded compliment is given, or someone says something about how good he is at communication, etc. Sheldon gladly accepts it as genuine feedback and uses it to build up a positive image of himself inside his own mind.

Sheldon also rigidly adheres to his standards and values. For instance, he struggles with lying or deception of any kind. When anyone tells him something is a secret, he immediately starts obsessing over it. In these situations, Sheldon isn’t able to focus on anything else other than the fact that he is withholding some kind of information. This frequently leads to him blurting it out at some point or another in order to clear his conscience and his mind. He rigidly holds to his belief that lies and deception are bad, regardless of the consequences he’ll face for telling the truth.

Inferior Ne:

“I never cared for surprises. My Meemaw, on the other hand, thought they were a hoot.”

“I already don’t like new things. Bring it on.”

The most obvious way Sheldon’s inferior Ne comes out is in his dislike of surprises or anything unexpected or new. As mentioned in the dominant Si section, Sheldon easily gets entrenched in his routines, being bothered by any little deviation from what he is used to. He struggles greatly when his twin sister moves out of their bedroom because he didn’t like the idea of things being different. He slowly warmed up to the idea as others pointed out some of the positive aspects of the change, like being able to have his model trains in the bedroom with him. Sheldon is also quick to dismiss possibilities brought up by others.

Another demonstration of his bad Ne can be seen when he develops a map of possibilities for where his sister might be after she steals their father’s truck and runs away. He takes several disparate pieces of information and loops them together to come up with destinations where she may head within the radius that the truck could have traveled in the amount of time that had passed. His conclusions were clearly inaccurate, and that was readily apparent to everyone else. Of course, his calculations for the radius were correct, but his assumptions of what girls like (malls, ponies, make up, etc.) that he used for his basis for possible destinations was far off.