The model, the method and its limits

DISC describes four everyday behavioural styles: Direct, Inspiring, Steady and Careful. The idea comes from William Moulton Marston's 1928 book Emotions of Normal People. Modern psychology sees DISC as a version of the "interpersonal circle", which describes behaviour on two dimensions: how assertive or measured you are, and how task-focused or people-focused you are. Those dimensions line up with two of the widely researched "Big Five" traits, extraversion and agreeableness.

Everyone uses all four styles. Your profile shows which feels most natural to you and which shapes how it comes out.

• 32 original statements, eight per style, two of which are worded in reverse to catch agree-with-everything answering.
• You rate each statement twice, for work and for your personal life, on a five-point scale. That lets us show where you flex between settings.
• Each style gets a score from 0 to 100 in each setting. Your profile is the leading style, plus the second style when it is close behind.
• We only report a work-versus-home difference when it is large enough to be more than everyday noise (15 points or more).
• When all four styles are close, we tell you you're a flexible blend rather than forcing a label.
• The 3-minute quick check uses "most like me / least like me" choices. It's great for icebreakers but less precise than the full test.

• It describes how you prefer to behave, not what you're capable of, your values or your intelligence.
• It is a self-report: it reflects how you see yourself. Others may see you differently, which is often a great conversation.
• It is not a psychological or clinical test, and it does not diagnose anything.
• It must not be used for hiring, promotion, discipline or any other employment decision. DISC-style tools have not been shown to predict job performance, and South African law requires that any test used in employment decisions is proven valid, reliable and fair.

We are collecting anonymous data from people who agree to it, to check the reliability of each scale, how stable results are over time and whether the questions work equally well across South Africa's language and cultural groups. We will publish the results in plain language, including the limitations, and adjust the scoring if the evidence says we should.