The history of the DISC model throughout the ages

Explore the rich history of behavioural study through the ages with our timeline, tracing the evolution of Marston’s DISC model.

From ancient Greek philosophers to the innovative Arc en Ciel DISC©® Colour Method, experience over two thousand years of insightful developments.

Where does the AEC DISC method originate from?

Marston is widely recognised as the pioneer of the DISC model, but did you know that the ancient Greeks had already identified behaviours and the four aspects of our world?

Explore below the timeline of the history of behavioural language and colours.

Between 490 and 430 BCE

Empedocle

In the 5th century BCE, Empedocle, founder of the School of Medicine in Sicily, along with other ancient Greek philosophers, hypothesized that all materials composing the world were made up of four elements: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. These elements could combine in an infinite number of possibilities.

>>> Learn more about Empedocles’ four elements

Between 460 and 370 BCE

Hippocrate

The Hippocratic School (460–370 BCE), founded by Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was influenced by this theory of the four elements and extended it by identifying four humors: choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic.

>>> Learn more about Hippocrates’ four humors

Beetween 384-322 BCE

Aristote

To the theory of the four elements (Fire, Air, Water, and Earth), Aristotle (384–322 BCE) added the concept of four elemental qualities: Hot, Cold, Dry, and Wet, placed on two axes—temperature (Hot and Cold) on one hand, and moisture (Dry and Wet) on the other. The combination of these four elements and their intersection with these four humors and qualities foreshadows the DISC model.

>>> Learn more about Aristotle’s theory

1920

Eduard Spranger

Eduard Spranger (1882–1963), a German psychologist and philosopher, published his work Types of Men. His “Values” are six in number: Cognitive, Aesthetic, Utilitarian, Altruistic, Individualistic, and Traditional.

Spranger’s six Values have been incorporated into Cleaver’s DISC (and therefore into the AEC DISC Method) from the beginning. This contrasts with other DISC methods, which either did not integrate them, added them later or modified them, or sometimes made them optional. Understanding these Values is particularly useful as they help to nuance or strengthen the behaviors explained by DISC and the Colors.

1921

Carl Gustav Jung

In 1921, Jung published Psychological Types. In this foundational work, Jung thoroughly described four Functions—Sensation, Intuition, Thinking, and Feeling—and two Attitudes: Extraversion and Introversion.

These four Functions combine with the two Attitudes to form the eight Psychological Types. These would later inspire the eight typologies of the Arc-En-Ciel DISC®, visualized in the AEC DISC Wheel.

>>> Why the AEC DISC Method is Unique

1928

William Moulton Marston

Known for his contribution to the lie detector, William Moulton Marston published a book in 1928 titled The Emotions of Normal People. In this work, he described four basic behaviors, depending on whether individuals tend to be active or passive and whether they perceive their environment as favorable or unfavorable. The four quadrants (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conformity) were initially associated with colors: Blue for Dominance, Red for Influence, Yellow for Steadiness, and Green for Conformity.

These behavioral styles have been consistently associated with the four Colors—Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue—since the inception of the Arc-En-Ciel DISC Method. This new order of the four Colors has since been adopted by most DISC methods. Observation of behavior in this framework is objective and descriptive, rather than subjective and judgmental.

>>> Why is the Color Method AEC DISC unique?

1942

Jolande Jacobi

In 1942, Jolande Jacobi, a collaborator of Carl Jung, came up with the idea of mapping Jung’s four Functions onto a wheel.

To diagram personality according to Jung’s Psychological Types, she also proposed a third axis, perpendicular to the two crossed axes of the Functions. This axis would represent the attitudes of Extraversion or Introversion. We would thus have a 3-dimensional sphere.

This wheel greatly inspired the AEC DISC wheel.

>>> En savoir plus sur la Roue AEC DISC

1948

Walter Vernon Clarke

The origin of this questionnaire dates back to Walter Clarke, who, as a student at Columbia University, wrote his doctoral thesis under the supervision of Marston. In 1956, Walter Vernon Clarke, as a psychologist, developed a whole series of recruitment tests and became passionate about measuring personality. He created the first “Activity Vector Analysis.”

For this, Clarke compiled a list of adjectives commonly used to describe people. After gathering and analyzing the results, he discovered that the four factors derived from the data (aggressive, sociable, stable, and avoiding) closely resembled Marston’s DISC method.

Clarke concluded that the best way to explain these data was through the use of the behavioral model developed by Marston.

1956

John P Cleaver

Employed at Walter Clarke Associates, J.P. Cleaver later created his own company, The Cleaver Company.

John P. Cleaver confirmed Clarke’s findings and observed that two out of three workers were dissatisfied with their jobs. He deduced that the true organizational success of a company depends on the alignment between individuals and the behavioral demands encountered in their work environment.

J.P. Cleaver then developed the first original DISC behavior assessment questionnaire,SelfDISCription,” for which the AEC DISC Method holds the exclusive global license. This original DISC questionnaire includes 24 groups of 4 sets of adjectives and incorporates the concepts of “more” and “less.” Other DISC systems created their own questionnaires, which are more or less valid. He also created the first DISC Profile from this original questionnaire, for which we also hold the global license.

The Cleaver Company was sold to the Hay Consulting Group in 1980 and was later repurchased by J.P. Cleaver himself about a decade later. The Cleaver Company is now owned by Frank Dumar.

1972

John Geier

In 1972, John Geier, trained by J.P. Cleaver, initially created the Performax Profile, without colors, based on the DISC questionnaire and Cleaver’s Profile. Later, he developed the “Profile System – PPS,” still based on the “SelfDISCription” questionnaire and Cleaver’s Profile. This questionnaire was subsequently modified with the addition of four new groups of 4 questions. This profile was then used, and continues to be used, under the name Everything DISC. The four colors were later added in a new order: Green for Dominance, Red for Influence, Blue for Steadiness, and Yellow for Conformity!

1984

Bill Bonnstetter

Trained by Geier, Bill Bonnstetter created TTI and his own Personal Insights Profile, without colors, based on Cleaver’s “SelfDISCription” or “AutoDISCription” questionnaire and Profile. He added several adjectives to the existing 24 items and began computerizing the process.

In 1993, in his book Universal Language, Bill Bonnstetter adopted the same colors as Geier in the same order, assigning Green to Dominance, Red to Influence, Blue to Steadiness, and Yellow to Conformity.

In 1995, he partnered with Andi Lothian (a Scot) who brought a network of European distributors and his Jungian approach.

1997

La méthode Insights en France

Insights was introduced to France by Patrice Fabart in the 1990s.

Initially, Marston, the founder of the DISC model, had assigned colors to the different behaviors. These colors weren’t necessarily very representative or logical (see William Marston, John Geier, and Bill Bonnstetter).

At Patrice Fabart’s request in 1997, the contribution of the color language and the introduction of the colors Red for Dominance, Yellow for Influence, Green for Steadiness, and Blue for Conformity (replacing the previously associated colors) was implemented in the Success Insights profiles. Since then, a large number of DISC tools have adopted this same color symbolism and order.

1998

Scission au sein d'Insights et création de Success Insights et d'Insights Discovery

In 1997, the partners of Insights – Bill Bonnstetter (American) and Andi Lothian (Scottish) – disagreed and separated, each creating their own method.

Success Insights, referring to Marston, was created in the United States, and Insights Discovery, based on Carl Jung’s work, was created in Scotland. Prior to this split, the original Insights method was a synthesis of both.

During this separation, Insights Discovery created its own questionnaire, which is no longer comparable to the original and calculates the natural style mathematically from the adapted style.

Meanwhile, Success Insights retained the original DISC questionnaire before making significant modifications to both the questionnaire and its processing since the early 2000s.

2005

La Méthode des Couleurs Arc En Ciel DISC

After this split and modifications to the questionnaires (according to each party’s preferences), and before losing his bearings… (or his Greek), Patrice Fabart decided to return to the roots by reconciling and reuniting them. He then obtained the global license for the SelfDISCription questionnaire and the resulting database from Cleaver Company. In 2005, he created the Arc En Ciel DISC©® Method, using the original DISC questionnaire, with the results and processing unchanged.

Of course, he applied (as he had established in 1997) the colors Red for Dominance, Yellow for Influence, Green for Steadiness, and Blue for Conformity—colors that correspond to the order of the colors of the Rainbow, giving it a universal scientific character, hence the name Arc En Ciel DISC©® Method or Method of Colors©®. The Arc En Ciel DISC Method (AEC DISC) is distributed in France and internationally by the company Arc En Ciel RH.

Since then, many DISC tools have adopted this same symbolism and color order.

The history of DISC Colours

The history of DISC Colours reflects significant variations in the colours assigned to each behavioural style, as previously mentioned. These changes are summarised in the table below.

History of the colors illustrating the different styles of behaviour of the DISC Model

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