DISC Profile Model, What Is DiSC And Who Created DISC?

The DISC Model continues to be one of the most popular four quadrant behavioral and personality models. The online DISC profile and other disc profiles are based on the research of William Moulton Marston Ph.D. (1893-1947). Marston, who was influenced by such contemporaries and Carl Jung sought to find theory to explain the behavior of "normal" "healthy" people within a specific situation or environment. Marston, the father of the DISC, was a graduate of Harvard University. Among his contributions Marston was a consulting psychologist, researcher and authored or co-authored five books. He was also published in such juried professional journals as in the American Journal of Psychology, and reference books including The Encyclopedia of Psychology, and The Encyclopedia Britannica. It was Marston’s 1928 “Emotions of Normal People”, which introduced the theory of DISC. He classified four categories of human behavioral type, style or temperament-- Dominance, Influence (Marston chose the term inducement), Steadiness or Stability (originally submission) and Compliant, Conscientious, or Cautious, (originally compliance). It should be noted that Marston never developed his D.I.S.C. model into a four quadrant model though now a days DISC has become one of the modest popular four quadrant models, with various companies using quadrants, circles, wheels, and diamonds to graphically represent the positioning of behavioral and personality styles and types. The D.I.S.C. model looks at behavioral styles and behavioral preferences.

Marston, in addition to his work on DISC and understanding personality, emotional intelligence (before it was called emotional intelligence), and behavioral styles is created with developing the lie detector. Another interesting aside is that Marston also was the creator of “Wonder Woman,” where he introduced the strong female super hero into comic strips.

For about 40 years DISC has continued to evolve. From Marston's original development of the D.I.S.C. model; to the research conducted by the University of Minnesota's Dr. John Geier and other researcher and assessment developer.

Irony Marston developed the D.I.S.C. model he never copyrighted his disc profile test. Yet, today, 75 years after the publication of his book, over 5 million people have taken various forms of the DISC profile throughout the world. Marston’s original work continue to be enhanced by ongoing behavioral research and profiles can be found in than 50 languages by various publishers of the disc assessment.  With this evolution of various versions of the DISC of varying quantity and validity. There are numerous people and companies trying to capitalize on the DISC and Marston's original work. DISC Classic 2.0 Profile and the PPSS or Personal Profile Software System Profile offer a 28 question model of the DISC in order to provide what we believe to be a highly valid, reliable instrument presented in a very user-friendly way that is applicable to not only business applies, but family, social and personal relationships.

John C Goodman, MSOD, MSW

President-Center for Internal Change, Inc.

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