*This is a single installment in a larger series dedicated to examining some of the most popular, influential, and historically important personality testing models and assessment tools.
DISC Assessment is a widely-used behavioral self-testing tool, one that organizations have deployed in an effort to better understand workplace behavior, internal culture, and team dynamics. At nearly a century old, the concept of DISC assessment has been adopted in a variety of corporate, educational, and professional development settings. In spite of its relatively long history, DISC assessment has been the subject of criticism for its limited grounding in scientific process.
In the guide that follows, we’ll take a closer look at the ideas and history underlying DISC Assessment as well as some of the strengths and weaknesses of this behavioral assessment model.
What is the DISC Assessment?
DISC Assessment is a behavioral testing method that proceeds from the assumption that an individual’s personality can be explained based on their scoring in four areas of behavior–Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness.
The DISC Assessment is based on the foundational premise that these classifications can be used to understand how and why individuals are likely to behave, as well as how respondents will likely interact with others, especially in workplace settings. Those organizations that have used DISC assessment in real-world settings have done so for the purposes of hiring, workplace development and team building.
A Note on Terminology: DISC Assessment refers to the model, method, and testing history surrounding this particular assessment tool. DiSC Assessment (with a lower-case “i”) is a registered trademark, and the testing brand most closely associated with administration of DISC-based assessment today.
How does DISC Assessment work?
The DISC Assessment is a self-report assessment using a Likert Scale survey method. Respondents are presented with a sequence of statements and are required to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with each.
The DISC Assessment typically consists of between 24 and 75 items, and is designed to measure attitudes, beliefs, work ethic, social behavior, and more.
Responses are subsequently analyzed to determine which combination of the four traits best describes the respondent. Advocates of the DISC Assessment method argue that individual personality can be understand within the scope of the following four traits:
- Dominance is used to describe a person who is confident, decisive, and goal-orientated. Dominant individuals are typically assertive, direct, and focused on actions that get results.
- Influence refers to the emphasis an individual places on communication, relationships, and motivating the behavior of those around them. Influential people will typically show characteristics like persuasiveness, extroversion, and enthusiasm.
- Steadiness describes those who place a focus on cooperation, support, and consistency. Individuals who may be characterized as steady will typically exhibit qualities like patience, empathy, and calm.
- Conscientiousness describes individuals who place a focus on priorities like accuracy, quality, and structure. Respondents with high conscientiousness can often be described in terms like analytical, detail-oriented, and precise.
The Basic Structure of a DISC Assessment
- Step 1: Respondents rate their agreement with various statements on the following scale: Strongly Disagree; Disagree; Neutral; Agree; Strongly Agree.
- Step 2: The Assessment generates a personalized report that categorizes respondents based on their dominant traits. This report will typically be presented with a score of between 0 and 100 in each category. For instance, a score for a person with a propensity toward Influence and Steadiness might receive the following score: low D; high I; moderate S; low C. This person would be categorized as Is.
- Step 3: Organizations may use these findings to make determinations about the qualifications of individuals for certain roles, responsibilities, team building experiences, and leadership development opportunities.
DISC Assessment scoring is often represented in the form of a color wheel like the one pictured here below.
A Brief History of DISC Assessment
Though the DISC Assessment model has been applied in real-world settings, there is considerable debate to this date about its value in predicting job fit or workplace behavior. Much of this skepticism stems from its origin story.
DISC Assessment sprang from the pen of a very fascinating and influential American psychologist named Dr. William Moulton Marston. In spite of his creativity and insight, the process underlying Marston’s theoretical model was by no means scientific.
The Fascinating Life of Dr. William Moulton Marston
Before we get to Marston’s innovation in the field of behavioral assessment, it is worthwhile to take a brief tangent into Marston’s colorful resume. The Harvard graduate worked closely with his wife Elizabeth Holloway and their romantically-linked partner Olive Byrne on a number of innovations.
First among them was their collaborative work on a device that measured systolic blood pressure as a way of detecting truthfulness. They originally tested their early forerunner to the polygraph on German POWs during World War I. Though there is minimal scientific evidence to support the claim, Marston was convinced that blood pressure could be used to measure honesty.
As a byproduct of his work, Marston also resolved that women are generally more honest and virtuous than men. And though it would seem a non-sequitur, it bears noting that Marston was on record as advocating for the educational value of comic books. But these two ideas converged in a remarkable way when Marston was hired to work as a consultant for D.C. Comics.
At the time, in 1940, the publishing house was responsible for iconic male heroes like Superman, Batman, and the Green Lantern, but had no notable female superheroes.
In 1941, and working under the pseudonym Charles Moulton, Dr. Marston conceptualized Wonder Woman–again with the helpful influence of the strong women in his life. It is fitting that Wonder Woman’s signature “weapon” is her Golden Lasso of Truth.
Though highly prolific in the field of psychology Marston would spend the rest of his life working in the field of comic books before passing away in 1947, just before his 54th birthday.
Formulating the Basis for the DISC Model
Between his innovative work in truth detection and comic books, Dr. Marston put forth the theory that would ultimately evolve into the modern DISC Assessment. In a 1928 book called Emotions of Normal People, Marston argued that individual personalities could be understood within a dichotomy of Active and Passive traits.
Within this dichotomy, said Marston, individuals could be scored on four personality traits–two Active traits (Dominance and Inducement) and two Passive traits (Submission and Compliance).
Based on his research into human behavior, and particularly how this behavior may be influenced by factors like environment, circumstances, and the behavior of others, Marston argued that individuals can be scored on the following traits:
- Dominance, which describes the Active use of force in the face of resistance created by one’s surrounding environment, circumstances, or other individuals;
- Inducement, which describes the Active use of charm, persuasion, and charisma to navigate obstacles, interact with others, and solve problems;
- Submission, which describes a Passive and voluntary acceptance of duty, obligation, or the needs of others; and
- Compliance, which describes adherence to order and structure based on deference, often fearful, to a greater force.
These ideas would eventually become influential to a future generation of personality psychologists, though not until after Marston’s premature death from cancer.
The Evolution of DISC Assessment
It would be roughly 20 years before another psychologist would apply Marston’s ideas to an actual assessment tool. Thereafter, a number of notable personality psychologists would take the reins.
- 1948: Walter V. Clarke invents the Activity Vector Analysis (AVA), an assessment tool used to determine individual fit for job placement. The assessment required respondents to choose from an extensive list of adjectives to determine which best described them. Clarke consequently determined that individual personalities could be divided into four categories: aggressive, sociable, stable, and avoidant.
- 1951: John Cleaver adapted the AVA to create a 24-item, four-adjective, forced-choice ‘question’ instrument. This was followed in 1956 by Cleaver’s introduction of the Cleaver DISC assessment, which applied this forced-choice approach to the four categories we know today: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. .
- 1970s: University of Minnesota faculty member John Geier used Marston’s ideas and the assessment work done by Clarke and Cleaver to create the Personal Profile System (PPS). Geier used Cleaver’s 24-item structure but helped to refine the analysis used in response to scoring while also founding the Performax testing company. This company ultimately laid the groundwork for the test publishing giant Wiley.
- 1994: Testing expert Pamela Cole oversaw an effort to update and expand Geier’s Personal Profile System. It was dubbed the PPA 2800 before ultimately being trademarked as the DiSC Classic. This is the version which is largely in circulation today.
Common Applications of DISC Assessment
Whereas self-report assessment tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Big Five (or Five Factor Model) are designed to help us better understand personality, the DISC assessment tool is more directly focused on behavioral tendencies and work-related traits.
It gained increasing popularity with the growth of corporate America in the 1980s.. Businesses first began adopting Geier’s PPS for support in key personnel decisions. As the test evolved into a family of DiSC testing products, its applications expanded to include:
- Team Building, with the DISC assessment frequently being used to identify individual behavior styles, communication preferences, and collaborative abilities as a basis for assembling compatible internal teams
- Leadership Development, with DISC assessment helping to identify areas of strength and weakness, and consequently help to refine critical leadership skills
- Conflict Resolution, with DISC Assessment providing HR personnel a deeper understanding of the divergent perspectives and behavioral tendencies that can cause conflict, and therefore supporting more targeted mediation
- Hiring and Recruiting, with DISC Assessment providing a measure of a candidate’s suitability for a given role based on the alignment of behavioral and personality traits with the nature and demands of the position
Common Critique of DISC Assessment
In spite of its continued use in real-world settings, the DISC Assessment model does not stand up well to scientific scrutiny. It is notable that Dr. Marston was deeply influenced by the works of Sigmund Freud.
While the Austrian physicist is a towering figure in the fields of psychology, philosophy, and literature, he is also noted for proffering any number of ideas, experiments, theoretical constructs, and even real-world treatment methods without any basis in science.
To an extent, Marston follows directly in Freud’s footsteps, creating a construct in DISC that is thoughtful, fascinating, and completely lacking in scientific validity. Marston’s Emotions of Normal People attempts to do for the normal range of human behaviors and emotions what Freud’s works did for the field of abnormal psychology. As such, it is more a work of subjective philosophy than objective science.
In this way, it shares a similar shortcoming as the one often connected to MBTI. Namely, the selection of personality traits measured is inherently limited, oversimplified and arbitrary. Together, these flaws give any assessment based on the DISC model limited predictive power if any at all.
To its credit, DISC Assessment has proven to demonstrate high reliability. This means that its results may be replicated with some consistency. Individuals who take the test on multiple occasions are likely to reach the same scoring outcomes each time.
However, what this score actually means is more difficult to determine. A number of investigative studies into the DISC Assessment method found no evidence that scoring outcomes were an effective predictor of job fit or workplace performance. Researchers have therefore cautioned against basing hiring, recruitment, leadership development, and team building decisions exclusively on the outcome of DISC Assessments.
A Comprehensive Approach to Personality Assessment
We would echo the importance of triangulating findings from multiple sources and assessment methods when making these critical personnel decisions. For instance, while we believe that the Success Portraits Personality Tests (SPPT) offer an illuminating look at how personality influences workplace performance, we also frequently point out that many other factors can help predict performance including personal experience, intellect, and environment.
This is why we advocate for using SPPT assessments alongside a number of other screening tools and metrics. To find out how our Success Portraits Personality Tests (SPPT) can be used alongside other more traditional methods of workplace evaluation, check out our conversation with SPPT creators Fred Switzer and Jo Jorgenson.