Comparison · with sources
DISC is the four colours most people have met on a course. The Enneagram is the nine types. The two are used for much of the same work, but they operate at different depths – and they do not stand equally strong when you look at the research behind them.
We teach the Enneagram and make a living from it. You should know that when reading a page like this. So we have included DISC’s real strengths and written out the Enneagram’s weaknesses. Every figure can be checked in the sources at the bottom.
DISC today usually works with four dimensions, described by the publisher Wiley as follows:
The Enneagram does not work with dimensions but with nine patterns of motivation. Each type has a basic fear and a basic desire. The nine types fall into three centres: the head centre (types 5, 6 and 7), the heart centre (types 2, 3 and 4) and the body centre (types 8, 9 and 1).
A concrete example of the difference. Two managers both score high on D. One is a type 8 who pushes because she fears being controlled by others and wants to keep her own direction. The other is a type 3 who pushes because he fears being worthless without results. The colour is the same. What it takes to make them let go of control is the exact opposite.
| The Enneagram | DISC | |
|---|---|---|
| Describes | Motive – why you do it | Behaviour – what can be seen |
| Number of categories | 9 types, plus wings, subtypes and levels of development | 4 dimensions, often shown as 8 segments in a circle |
| Learning time | Typically 2 days for a thorough introduction | Can be taught in a few hours |
| Origin | Oscar Ichazo (the types) and Claudio Naranjo (the Western version, from 1970) | William Moulton Marston, Emotions of Normal People, 1928. Walter V. Clarke built the tests: Activity Vector Analysis in the 1940s and the first self-assessment in 1956 |
| One model or many? | Several schools, but the nine types are the same | Many vendors with different letter names, colours and scales |
| Describes development? | Yes – direction under pressure and in security is part of the model | No. It distinguishes natural from adapted style, but offers no path of development |
| Use for recruitment? | No | No – authorised partners advise against it themselves |
Two things are often conflated: whether the test measures consistently, and whether it measures something real.
Consistency is good. Wiley’s own research report for Everything DiSC gives Cronbach’s alpha from 0.79 to 0.90 across the eight scales with a median of 0.87 (n = 752), and test-retest over two weeks of 0.85 to 0.88 with a median of 0.86 (n = 599). Those are real figures, and they are good ones.
Validity is another matter. There is no documentation that DISC predicts job performance – which the publishers do not claim either, since it is not what the instrument is for. The psychologist Wendell Williams has criticised the use of DISC in recruitment on the grounds that a test for that purpose needs criterion validity against actual job performance, and DISC does not have it.
The sharpest criticism in the Nordics comes from Dan Katz, a licensed psychologist writing for the Swedish skeptics association Vetenskap och Folkbildning. Of the books that spread the model he writes: «Tyvärr är teorierna som ligger till grund för böckerna rent kvasivetenskapligt nonsens» – the theories behind the books are pure pseudoscientific nonsense. He notes that the model rests on Marston’s 1928 speculation about «psychonic energy», which was never substantiated.
One more thing is worth knowing: there is no single DISC. One of the publishers writes that the letters can stand for Dominance or Drive, Influence or Inspire, Steadiness, Stability or Submission, and Conscientiousness, Correctness, Compliance or Caution – depending on who built the assessment. Colours and numbers vary too. A DISC result from one vendor therefore cannot simply be compared with one from another.
Many people in Scandinavia met DISC through Thomas Erikson’s book Surrounded by Idiots, where the model is presented as red, yellow, green and blue. The book has sold around 1.5 million copies and been translated into 55 languages. It has done more to spread DISC in the Nordics than any vendor.
It has also met organised opposition. Mattias Lundberg, associate professor of psychology at Umeå University, has called the DISC theory «nonsense», and in 2018 the Swedish skeptics association named Erikson Årets förvillare – misleader of the year.
It is worth keeping the two apart: a popular book overstating its case does not make the DISC instruments useless. But it explains why many occupational psychologists shrug when the colours come out.
The Enneagram does not stand stronger. The only systematic review, Hook and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Psychology 2021, went through 104 independent samples and concluded: «we found mixed evidence of reliability and validity». Only 49 of the 104 were published.
The most uncomfortable single figure for those of us who work with the Enneagram: two widely used Enneagram instruments placed only 42 per cent of participants in the same type. Factor analyses also typically find fewer than nine factors.
There are no published studies comparing the Enneagram directly with DISC. Everything written about «Enneagram vs DISC» online, including this page, is written by someone with an interest in one of the models. We can compare what the two models say, and what the research shows about each. We cannot point to a study that has measured them against each other, because none exists.
Read more on our page about the Enneagram and the research.
The vendors say so themselves. An authorised Everything DiSC partner writes that the instrument «is not designed to support early-stage screening», that it «should not be used for candidate screening alone», and that it «is not a predictor of job performance».
The same holds for the Enneagram. When two instruments agree on the type in only 42 per cent of cases, the precision is far from what a hiring decision demands. We do not use 360indicator for selection either.
To predict job performance, a large 2021 recalculation of the selection literature puts structured interviews at around 0.42, job knowledge tests at 0.40 and work samples at 0.33. Personality measured as conscientiousness sits at about 0.19. None of those figures come from DISC or the Enneagram.
Choose DISC if you have two hours, if you want a shared language for communication style fast, and if the subject must not get too personal. The colours are easy to remember and work as an icebreaker. For a sales team learning to read customers, that is often enough.
Choose the Enneagram if you have hit the same problem several times and do not understand why it keeps coming back. If a capable employee collapses under pressure in a way nobody predicted. Or if you want to work with leadership, where knowing how people come across is not enough.
Many organisations use both, and there is nothing wrong with that. DISC describes the surface accurately. The Enneagram explains what lies beneath. The problem arises only if you believe four colours can carry a leadership development programme.
If you want to try it yourself, take a free Enneagram test or read about our Enneagram courses. We also compare the Enneagram with the MBTI and with the five-factor model.
Sources: Everything DiSC Research Report, John Wiley & Sons, alpha and test-retest. · discprofile.com, Wiley’s own pages on reliability, validity and the varying names of the letters. · Dan Katz, Folkvett 2019:1, Vetenskap och Folkbildning. · The Wikipedia articles on DISC assessment and Surrounded by Idiots for reach figures and for the criticism from Mattias Lundberg and Föreningen Vetenskap och Folkbildning. · Hook, Hall, Davis, Van Tongeren & Conner (2021), Journal of Clinical Psychology 77(4). · Sackett, Zhang, Berry & Lievens (2022), Journal of Applied Psychology.
DiSC and Everything DiSC are trademarks of John Wiley & Sons. We are neither affiliated with nor certified by them, and this page is an independent comparison.
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