Short answer: no. There is no scientific evidence that a DISC questionnaire can measure “natural” and “adapted” behaviour separately, even though some providers still claim it. Here is where the idea comes from, and what Everything DiSC® does instead.
Where the claim comes from
Some DISC tools claim to measure “natural behaviour” and “adapted behaviour”. These are usually older DISC tools, similar to our DiSC Classic® profiles. Their questionnaire consists of groups of four words: you choose the word that is most like you and the word that is least like you. The result is two graphs, one built from your “most” choices and one from your “least” choices. Combined, they show your DISC style.
Some providers claim that the “most” graph shows adapted behaviour, because it is a very conscious choice, and that the “least” graph shows natural behaviour, because it is a less conscious choice.
Our researchers have not been able to find any scientific evidence that supports this interpretation, and when reviewing research reports from assessment providers who make this claim, we cannot find any research that documents that one graph shows natural behavior and the other adapted behavior.
Wiley research team
Natural and adapted behaviour can be a good topic for conversation. There is simply no evidence that a DISC questionnaire measures it.
The British Psychological Society ran its own validation study on the 24-item DISC questionnaire in the early 1990s. It concluded that Graphs I and II measured nothing more than different views of self-perception. Providers who still make the claim are working with outdated and unsupported information.
When a person answers the basic 24-item questionnaire, they focus on one thing: how they see themselves. It is not plausible that this single focus produces two different results, one adapted and one natural.
Why there are three graphs: adjusting for social bias
When people describe themselves, they tend to pick socially desirable words, such as “friendly”, and avoid undesirable ones, such as “aggressive”. This is well known in psychometric testing.
The original 24-item questionnaire by John Cleaver asked which attributes were most like you and which were least like you. The “least” scores were then subtracted from the “most” scores. That produced three graphs: most like, least like and the difference. The design was meant to reduce the effect of socially desirable answers.
The psychometric analysis showed this: Graph III, the difference scores, was always more internally reliable than Graphs I or II. Even so, many DISC providers do not show Graph III, the only graph that shows overall self-perception with the social bias removed.
The myth that you only need Graphs I and II
Wiley no longer uses Graphs I, II and III in its current tools. They were only used in DiSC Classic. The Everything DiSC® instruments use a circumplex: a circular map with eight priorities around it. This takes DiSC back to its origins, when the model was drawn on a circle.
Historically, Graph III combined the scores of Graphs I and II. This was needed because the 24-question forced-choice instrument was imprecise, as the 1996 research report shows. By improving the questions and adding four new ones, Wiley made the instrument much more accurate. It was called the Personal Profile System 2800, later DiSC Classic II, and was the DiSC profile of choice for decades.
In the early days of DISC, Walter Clarke and John Cleaver used a “vector analysis” tool: a set of cards describing a person’s behaviour as seen by themselves and as seen by others. William Moulton Marston also wrote about natural and adapted behaviour. But since John Cleaver designed the first 24-question assessment, no DISC questionnaire has had questions that specifically measure adapted or natural behaviour. Wiley’s research and the British Psychological Society around 1994 both established this. People certainly adapt their behaviour. The questionnaires are simply not designed to measure it.
What sets Everything DiSC® apart
There are several important differences between Everything DiSC® and other DISC tools, including the small “i” that distinguishes Wiley’s assessments.
The questionnaire
The first DISC profile was a 24-item questionnaire developed by John Cleaver in the 1950s, and most DISC profiles today still use a version of that forced-choice format.
Everything DiSC® uses a five-point rating scale and adaptive testing. There is no forced choice: respondents answer every item. When someone answers inconsistently on a scale, the assessment asks additional questions to place them more accurately. This makes Everything DiSC® far more accurate than the 24-item version.
Eight scales instead of four
Everything DiSC® measures more than the basic four scales of D, i, S and C. Wiley’s research found that the combination scales Di, iS, SC and CD are not simply the sum of two styles; they integrate both dimensions. The Di style, for example, has strengths of its own that neither the D nor the i style has alone.
Research and quality standards
Everything DiSC® is published by John Wiley & Sons, a publisher with more than 200 years of history and a strong reputation in the academic and professional world. Wiley developed the items for the four combination scales in 2007, when the first Everything DiSC® profiles were released, and added adaptive testing in 2012. Read more about the evidence in the science behind DiSC.
Sources: Integro, DISC Partners, British Psychological Society.
Want an assessment with published research behind it? Everything DiSC® is certified by DNV to the EFPA test-quality standard.
