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=Introduction=
=Introduction=
DISC is a popular system due partially to its many versions and widespread distribution by publishers worldwide. Another reason is that it luckily took advantage of early research in personality assessments that can be traced back to the 1940s and that have continued to prove being “not so bad after all” after all these years. However, research has greatly progressed since then. And the use of reports—which is most often what the DISC is about—shows its limitations more often than not.
The acronym  “DISC” stands for the four dimensions measured by systems that work with a technique based on groups of four adjectives.
   
There are many versions of the instrument published under different names, including DISC (with an upper case “I”), in different regions of the world, and accessible for free on the Internet.
We have been able to learn from many systems before starting the GRI, DISC is one of them. We couldn’t have conducted our own explorations so efficiently without it.
Research have quickly progressed in the field of psychology and personality assessment during the last century. It should be no surprise that the distance separating the GRI and DISC is filled with many discoveries, which we have hopefully and graciously taken advantage of when developing the GRI.


The first publication of this document goes back to 2013. It has regularly been updated since then.
The main, reference version of DISC was called DiSC Classic 2.0 until the 2020s, and is now called Everything DiSC (with a small “i”) published by Wiley & Sons, based in Hoboken, New Jersey. Other publishers include Performance International (PI), Target Training International (TTI), and Thomas International.


=Generalities=
=History=
DISC is a forced choice technique. People are asked to select the adjectives that correspond the most and the least to what they think they are. It takes around 10 minutes to complete. The results are a report and three graphs. The first graph reflects the answer to the most likely; the second reflects answers to the least likely. The third graph is a combination of the two first ones. Only the third one is really interpreted. It is on this one that the automatic report is produced. The report describes different characteristics such as management styles, sales style, motivation, interview questions, etc.
The origin of the DiSC is rooted in the successive works of Walter Clark with the AVA in the 1950s, John Cleaver and team in the 1960s with Self Discription, and John Geier in the 1970s with the PPS (Personal Profile System). PPS was enhanced at the end of the 1990s and renamed PPS 2800 Series after its rights were acquired by Inscape Publishing, later sold to Wiley and Sons in 2012. The first reports come from the observations of Geier of 15 profiles.


The origins of the DISC are rooted in the works of William Marston in the late 1920th, Walter Clark in the 1940th, John Cleaver in the 1960th, John Geier in the 1970th and Pamela Cole in the 1980th and 1990th. The main publisher of DISC is Inscape Publishing, Minneapolis, MN, USA, which owns the DISC and PPSS trademarks. It is sold by a network of consulting companies.
DISC is a popular system due partially to its simplicity, many versions, and widespread distribution by publishers worldwide. The first DISC version was not IP-protected, and many versions started to flourish early on.
The system luckily took advantage of early research from Louis Thurstone on factorial analysis in the 1930s, and others from Clark on dimensions that have proven to be “not so bad after all” after all these years. However, research has greatly progressed since then. The work from Moulton Marston is often cited by DISC publishers, but only came conveniently afterward.


There are several versions of DISC that work from the same forced-choice technique principles. They include Inscape Publishing, Performance International (PI), Target Training International (TTI), Insight, and Thomas International. They all come from the same origins: the PPA or PPSS, and obviously from previous works done on the AVA from Walter Clark in the 1940s that inspired people who worked with him and left his company to create the earlier versions of DISC.
=Assessment=
DISC is a forced-choice technique. People are asked to select the adjectives that correspond the most and the least to who they think they are. There are either 24 force-choice groups of adjectives, or 28 groups (since the PPS 2800 version latest version in the 1990s).


15 Classical profile patterns are identified by the DISC Inscape version. The comments on these profiles come from observations conducted by John Geier in the 1970th. Comments are given for each profile on: emotions, goals, how the person judges or influences others, how the person behaves under pressure, how the person increases effectiveness, what are the person’s overuses, what are the person’s fears, what is the person’s value to the organization.  
The DISC survey takes around 15 minutes to complete. The results are a report and three graphs. The first graph reflects the answer to the most likely; the second reflects answers to the least likely. The third graph combines the two others. Only the third one is interpreted. The main DISC publisher abandoned the least and most graphs since the 1990s, although others continue to speculate about them.


DISC is proposed for applications in team building, career counseling, conflict resolution, improving communication, sales force training and organizational development. It is not proposed for recruitment (see critics below). It is a popular technique among consultants who utilize it on the different above-mentioned applications.
A brief definition of the dimensions with a GRI a priori correspondence is provided in the following table:


=Quality of Measurement=
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
GRI is a free-choice technique, while DISC is a forced-choice one. This difference has a big impact on the quality of the measurements.
! Dimension !! Description !! GRI a priori
Let’s put it this way: Assume that you are questioning yourself about how much a person likes sugar. If, in answering this question, you force a person to eat meals that have no sugar, you will not get any correct answer. There is a similar problem with DISC: people are forced to check two among four adjectives even if none or all are appropriate for them.
|-
| Dominance (D) || Competitive, action-oriented, strive for success, enjoy challenges, and push for their opinions. || High 1, low 3
|-
| Influence (I) || Outgoing, influential, high-spirited, lively, optimistic, warm, and social, and enjoy interactions. || High 2, low 4
|-
| Steadiness (S) || Steady, calm, dependable, peaceful, even-tempered, and enjoy collaboration, show concern for others, and are cautious of change. || High 3, low 1, high 2
|-
| Conscientiousness (C) || Value structure, rules, accuracy, determined to stick with a problem until it's solved, skeptical, and self-controlled. || High 4, low 2
|}


On the contrary, GRI proposes a large number of stimuli to which people are invited to check or not, as much or as little they want. In the same way you would propose a large quantity of meals to a person, some having sugar in it, some not, more or less, so as to observe the one that the person likes best or dislikes most. At the end of this “food test”, you will be able to infer how probable this person might want to eat sugar and how much. The “DISC type of tests”, because of the way they are built, cannot bring the quality and precision in the measurements and the predictions as GRI does.
The DISC systems typically produce reports based on the four dimensions D, I, S, and C, which may include one graph or all three graphs, explanations about the four dimensions, and, more recently, a colored wheel with a dot indicating the person’s most representative factors.
The reports provided by the DiSC systems describe different characteristics such as management styles, communication or ales style, motivation, interview questions, emotions, goals, how the person judges or influences others, how the person behaves under pressure, how the person increases effectiveness, what the person overuses, what the person’s fears, what the person’s value to the organization, etc.


The quality of measurements can be revealed by doing A/B testing of the two techniques: asking the same persons to take DISC on one side and GRI on the other, then receiving both feedback and expressing which one they felt more reflected who they are and was more beneficial (we call this face validity). Our experience of these situations is that the persons felt the feedback was more detailed and closer to their understanding of their behavior, motivations, and drives, or what was happening at that time.
=Usage=
The DISC is proposed for applications in team building, career counseling, conflict resolution, improving communication, management training, sales force training, and organizational development. It is not proposed for recruitment (see critics below).  
The DISC is essentially used with reports, which, over the years, have been copied and embellished in many other DISC versions. The system is quick to take and simple. The results are produced immediately. The number of dimensions, four, is parsimonious.


We have documented the GRI for complying with the EEOC requirements (no discrimination against women or people over 40, etc.). Most versions of DISC have no documentation and thus are not legally safe for use in many situations, including hiring and promotion (see below about hiring). There are other statistics that should document a test (internal consistency, criteria validity, etc.).
=Comments=
=====Intensity=====
The ipsative and forced-choice format of the DISC prevents an accurate assessment of the factors' intensity, similar to comparing preferences between salty and sweet foods. Forcing a person to choose whether they prefer one over the other does not reveal how strongly they like or dislike salty or sweet foods. It only measures which one they prefer, even if the person dislikes or loves both of them.


=Adaptation, Role=
The purpose of the original forced-choice technique, which involved selecting the most and the least, was to reduce social desirability biases and eliminate variability caused by participants’ response styles. However, choosing one dimension over three others means the model cannot, by design, capture the intensity of each dimension or how the four dimensions accurately relate to one another.
The second difference between GRI and DISC: The Role does not exist in DISC. Without the Role one cannot know how much a people adapt their behavior. And one cannot anticipate also without the Role the limits of behavioral adaptations in the long run. Some may argue that the Profile II is the perception of role (There are 3 profiles drawn with some versions of the DISC) but it’s not. This second profile has opened various interpretations such as being the shadow aspect of personality from the Jungian approach, or … whatever. If one wants to know what the perception of the role is, one has to ask about it like we do with GRI (first question of the survey). It cannot be inferred from vague hypotheses.
No Engagement Level, no Response Level, and no Adaptation.
The model only measures the preference of one dimension over the other three. It might reveal the least preferred dimension, but with the same limitation. It cannot determine how the remaining two dimensions relate to the least and most preferred.


It comes from the above that the DISC cannot measure the Engagement Level, the Response Level and Adaptation as we do with the GRI. As we know these measurements are precious to understand individuals, what goes on in their environment, and how they adapt to it, or not.  
=====Orthogonality=====
The dimensions lack orthogonality as the comparison with the adaptive indicates. The factors were created long before more advanced calculations associated with the FFM model (Five Factor Model) and the discovery of universal behavior factors in the 1990s and 2000s. The behavior factors continued to gain more understanding afterward, which partially aligns with Thurstone and Clark's early findings on the four dimensions that came into the Self Discription and then the PPS that predate the DISC.


These aspects help make the connection with the PBI: what is expected in the job, the team and the organization. Without them the individual analysis is lacking what we can call the “social component”: the relationship with what’s happening out there and which is too part of what the person is.
=====Adaptation=====
These few aspects make the GRI a more sophisticated system than the DISC, not more complicated and much more simple in many respects, but bringing more in depth understanding of what’s going on with the person, and actionable items to work on.
The DISC model doesn’t consider the behaviors people feel they need to act out in order to adapt to their environment. Consequently, the DISC measurement combines natural and adapted behaviors into a single metric. In the DISC model, a person’s natural self is influenced by their perceived adaptation, which actually only reflects how they see themselves at the moment they answered the survey.
 
=Not for Hiring=  
Most DISC systems focus on the personal report and not on the job or position as we do with the PBI. That may be the other reason why some versions of DISC have not been promoted for other thing than coaching and team building.
 
In the 1980th the publishers of DISC sent a letter to their network strongly recommending not to use the DISC for recruitment, fearing litigation. This may explain why the DISC never really penetrated recruitments in the United States. Other versions of DISC such as Thomas have been used in recruitment and other applications in Europe.
 
=Just a report=
How it mostly works with the DISC systems is by printing reports for people and managers and reading these reports. It’s a constant among all versions of the DISC. The reports are more or less lengthy with generally 25 pages, up to 80 pages with graphs and many more analyses.
   
   
We have a different approach with GRI regarding these reports: 1) they need to be succinct.  2) Profiles are much more powerful than words.
How people adapt their behavior and how they are engaged are crucial information that link the individual to their environment and job demands, and these are not accounted for by the DISC model.
For 1) the GRI report is maximum three page long and get to the essential of behavior and motivation.


For 2) Profiles are much more powerful to analyze nuances, remember and apply for many applications. Texts are powerless to remember, cannot help for comparisons and cannot be utilized on a more regular basis. A fit with a job can be analyzed instantly by looking at two graphs. Many profiles can be remembered for analyzes of groups or even individuals alone. Profiles are also powerful for job analyses and reaching consensus.
=====Work relatedness=====
Although the AVA from which the DISC originated was designed for work applications, the DISC itself does not consider how measures relate to job demand, limiting its usefulness in recruitment. There is no method to measure expectations within jobs, so there are no capabilities to analyze the potential fit and necessary adjustments between the candidate and the position, or for developing a tailored plan. Additionally, no studies can prove non-discrimination against protected classes of employees as required by the EEOC, which further restricts the use of the DISC in recruitment and promotion.


=Social media components=
=====Representation Model=====
GRI’s platform enables to invite and share results. One can perform some style match, learn and test knowledge about key aspects of personality within the platform. Individual contributors and managers alike can better learn about the team. Managers can interview, select, learn about there team and get assistance for performance reviews. Expectations in jobs can be surveyed, analyzed, shared and finalized between users. Users including experts and executives can get coached in the GRI thanks to online tutorials, quizzes, exercises and case studies.
The three graphs calculated by PPS represent the same dimensions. The idea that one graph could represent adaptation or the “shadow” personality, as some called it, didn’t stand the test of time. Only the third graph remained in use. The graph was later dropped in favor of a circumplex representation.


As highlighted above, the profiles make a huge difference in making an efficient use of the information. But this requires a bit more effort to learn, than just reading a report. People learn if there is an interest or necessity for it, but also if they have easy tools and easy access to new experiences. That’s the social component of the GRI platform so that individuals can learn better, faster and benefit from its measurements. There is nothing close to that with the DISC system.
With its calculations and representation, the DISC only values one side of the dimensions being measured. That’s, for instance, measuring “Dominance” rather than “Agreeableness” (as the FFM assesses it). The other lower side of the continuum is eventually only taken into account when it is extreme. As the model cannot account for the four factors’ intensity, their representation in the graph gets distorted as well.


=Group Analyzes=
=====General validity=====
GRI proposes tools to analyze teams and larger groups. We can visualize profiles of teams, see how the behavior measurements are distributed and compare with hard metrics. We can map behavior of groups of people and thus better understand how people behave and analyze the fit-gap with strategy.
People generally agree with the information from reports and feedback sessions. Like looking in a mirror, this isn't surprising because the survey responses reflect what people know about themselves.
 
There is nothing close to the above with the DISC systems. Again, even when some versions of DISC such as Insight propose team analytics, the analyses to not lead to much actionable items, thus leaving DISC systems as systems that mostly provide lengthy individual reports.
However, looking at the reports and comparing the narratives with the adaptive profiles, GRI narratives are either neutral (35%), imprecise and misleading (45%), or valid (20%), the three types of narrative being mixed together. Additionally, 60% of the propositions were repetitive.
 
=Distribution model=
Another big difference between DISC and GRI is the way the DISC is distributed, trained and serviced through a network of consultants who most of the time do nothing but print the DISC reports for adding value to team building sessions. There is nothing like the GRI masterclass with the DISC approach. DISC knowledge is kept in the hands of consultants and is not transferred and shared with the clients as we do with the GRI.
There are however lot of books and online reading about the DISC measures and what to do with them.


Publishers of the “DISC kind of tests” often have entertaining support materials based on the four colors of DISC, available to their affiliates for team building sessions. The Insight version of DISC is the most popular for making use of the colors and other tools that they provide to their network.
=====Learning=====
The learning of DISC usually focuses on the four dimensions being measured and the applications of the measures for personal and team development. Since the DISC scales cannot capture a person’s behavior intensity, adaptation, engagement, and other important characteristics that connect a person to their environment and affect their motivation and relationships with others, the learning cannot realistically include a modus operandi for personal, leadership, and organizational development based on the results.


[[Category:Personality Assessment]]
[[Category:Personality Assessment]]

Latest revision as of 20:26, 15 October 2025

Introduction

The acronym “DISC” stands for the four dimensions measured by systems that work with a technique based on groups of four adjectives. There are many versions of the instrument published under different names, including DISC (with an upper case “I”), in different regions of the world, and accessible for free on the Internet.

The main, reference version of DISC was called DiSC Classic 2.0 until the 2020s, and is now called Everything DiSC (with a small “i”) published by Wiley & Sons, based in Hoboken, New Jersey. Other publishers include Performance International (PI), Target Training International (TTI), and Thomas International.

History

The origin of the DiSC is rooted in the successive works of Walter Clark with the AVA in the 1950s, John Cleaver and team in the 1960s with Self Discription, and John Geier in the 1970s with the PPS (Personal Profile System). PPS was enhanced at the end of the 1990s and renamed PPS 2800 Series after its rights were acquired by Inscape Publishing, later sold to Wiley and Sons in 2012. The first reports come from the observations of Geier of 15 profiles.

DISC is a popular system due partially to its simplicity, many versions, and widespread distribution by publishers worldwide. The first DISC version was not IP-protected, and many versions started to flourish early on. The system luckily took advantage of early research from Louis Thurstone on factorial analysis in the 1930s, and others from Clark on dimensions that have proven to be “not so bad after all” after all these years. However, research has greatly progressed since then. The work from Moulton Marston is often cited by DISC publishers, but only came conveniently afterward.

Assessment

DISC is a forced-choice technique. People are asked to select the adjectives that correspond the most and the least to who they think they are. There are either 24 force-choice groups of adjectives, or 28 groups (since the PPS 2800 version latest version in the 1990s).

The DISC survey takes around 15 minutes to complete. The results are a report and three graphs. The first graph reflects the answer to the most likely; the second reflects answers to the least likely. The third graph combines the two others. Only the third one is interpreted. The main DISC publisher abandoned the least and most graphs since the 1990s, although others continue to speculate about them.

A brief definition of the dimensions with a GRI a priori correspondence is provided in the following table:

Dimension Description GRI a priori
Dominance (D) Competitive, action-oriented, strive for success, enjoy challenges, and push for their opinions. High 1, low 3
Influence (I) Outgoing, influential, high-spirited, lively, optimistic, warm, and social, and enjoy interactions. High 2, low 4
Steadiness (S) Steady, calm, dependable, peaceful, even-tempered, and enjoy collaboration, show concern for others, and are cautious of change. High 3, low 1, high 2
Conscientiousness (C) Value structure, rules, accuracy, determined to stick with a problem until it's solved, skeptical, and self-controlled. High 4, low 2

The DISC systems typically produce reports based on the four dimensions D, I, S, and C, which may include one graph or all three graphs, explanations about the four dimensions, and, more recently, a colored wheel with a dot indicating the person’s most representative factors.

The reports provided by the DiSC systems describe different characteristics such as management styles, communication or ales style, motivation, interview questions, emotions, goals, how the person judges or influences others, how the person behaves under pressure, how the person increases effectiveness, what the person overuses, what the person’s fears, what the person’s value to the organization, etc.

Usage

The DISC is proposed for applications in team building, career counseling, conflict resolution, improving communication, management training, sales force training, and organizational development. It is not proposed for recruitment (see critics below). The DISC is essentially used with reports, which, over the years, have been copied and embellished in many other DISC versions. The system is quick to take and simple. The results are produced immediately. The number of dimensions, four, is parsimonious.

Comments

Intensity

The ipsative and forced-choice format of the DISC prevents an accurate assessment of the factors' intensity, similar to comparing preferences between salty and sweet foods. Forcing a person to choose whether they prefer one over the other does not reveal how strongly they like or dislike salty or sweet foods. It only measures which one they prefer, even if the person dislikes or loves both of them.

The purpose of the original forced-choice technique, which involved selecting the most and the least, was to reduce social desirability biases and eliminate variability caused by participants’ response styles. However, choosing one dimension over three others means the model cannot, by design, capture the intensity of each dimension or how the four dimensions accurately relate to one another.

The model only measures the preference of one dimension over the other three. It might reveal the least preferred dimension, but with the same limitation. It cannot determine how the remaining two dimensions relate to the least and most preferred.

Orthogonality

The dimensions lack orthogonality as the comparison with the adaptive indicates. The factors were created long before more advanced calculations associated with the FFM model (Five Factor Model) and the discovery of universal behavior factors in the 1990s and 2000s. The behavior factors continued to gain more understanding afterward, which partially aligns with Thurstone and Clark's early findings on the four dimensions that came into the Self Discription and then the PPS that predate the DISC.

Adaptation

The DISC model doesn’t consider the behaviors people feel they need to act out in order to adapt to their environment. Consequently, the DISC measurement combines natural and adapted behaviors into a single metric. In the DISC model, a person’s natural self is influenced by their perceived adaptation, which actually only reflects how they see themselves at the moment they answered the survey.

How people adapt their behavior and how they are engaged are crucial information that link the individual to their environment and job demands, and these are not accounted for by the DISC model.

Work relatedness

Although the AVA from which the DISC originated was designed for work applications, the DISC itself does not consider how measures relate to job demand, limiting its usefulness in recruitment. There is no method to measure expectations within jobs, so there are no capabilities to analyze the potential fit and necessary adjustments between the candidate and the position, or for developing a tailored plan. Additionally, no studies can prove non-discrimination against protected classes of employees as required by the EEOC, which further restricts the use of the DISC in recruitment and promotion.

Representation Model

The three graphs calculated by PPS represent the same dimensions. The idea that one graph could represent adaptation or the “shadow” personality, as some called it, didn’t stand the test of time. Only the third graph remained in use. The graph was later dropped in favor of a circumplex representation.

With its calculations and representation, the DISC only values one side of the dimensions being measured. That’s, for instance, measuring “Dominance” rather than “Agreeableness” (as the FFM assesses it). The other lower side of the continuum is eventually only taken into account when it is extreme. As the model cannot account for the four factors’ intensity, their representation in the graph gets distorted as well.

General validity

People generally agree with the information from reports and feedback sessions. Like looking in a mirror, this isn't surprising because the survey responses reflect what people know about themselves.

However, looking at the reports and comparing the narratives with the adaptive profiles, GRI narratives are either neutral (35%), imprecise and misleading (45%), or valid (20%), the three types of narrative being mixed together. Additionally, 60% of the propositions were repetitive.

Learning

The learning of DISC usually focuses on the four dimensions being measured and the applications of the measures for personal and team development. Since the DISC scales cannot capture a person’s behavior intensity, adaptation, engagement, and other important characteristics that connect a person to their environment and affect their motivation and relationships with others, the learning cannot realistically include a modus operandi for personal, leadership, and organizational development based on the results.

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