DISC Personality Test *

The DISC personality test and all contemporary DISC assessments are based on the research of William Moulton Marston. In 1928, he published the book titled Emotions of Normal People and introduced the DISC theory, where he classified four categories of human behavior known as the DISC Personality Types: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance. While Marston mentioned that a person had a primary “style”, he noted that a person’s behavior was made up of a little portion of every style.

It’s important to note that Marston did not develop an assessment. The history of DISC testing begins with Walter V. Clarke, who built a test for personnel selection. In 1951, John Cleaver developed his own assessment, Self DISCription, intended for selection of a person for a certain job based on their behavior. This assessment evolved into a 24, four-adjective, forced-choice “question” instrument. It is widely used with minor changes today.

For Individuals:

• Increase of self-awareness, investigation of personal approach to getting work done and contributing to a team
• In-depth understanding of individual responds to different situations and challenges
• Development of stronger communication and leadership skills

For Companies:

• Prediction of workplace behavior and decision-making processes
• Improvement of internal communications and teamwork
• Overall increase of productivity in the workplace

The DISC personality test facilitates better understanding of how to bring the strongest talents of individuals to their work, while minimizing the blind spots.

* We use the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) for our testing approach. It’s a collection of items managed by the Oregon Research Institute, freely available to the public. This tool helps us assess personality traits, and because it’s open-source, it promotes broad research and practical use.