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DISC personality types · Statistics

How common is each DISC style? Data from 1,135 free assessments

C was the most common primary style (36.1%) and I the least (17.4%). Seven in ten people had a blend.

1,135 people, first result each70 countriesSelf-selected, not a population sample

Fig 01 · Primary style, n = 1,135

Which DISC style is most common?

Among 1,135 people who finished our free DISC assessment, 36.1% led with C (Conscientiousness), 23.2% with D (Dominance), 19.0% with S (Steadiness) and 17.4% with I (Influence). The other 4.2% had a balanced profile, with no style leading.

Primary style is the highest of the four scale means. When all four sit less than 0.4 apart the result is a balanced profile instead (48 people, 4.2%). 90 people (7.9%) had an exact tie for first place; ties resolve in the order D, I, S, C, which gives D a small lift.

Fig 02 · Four single styles and twelve blends

All 16 DISC results, ranked

The most common single result was CS, The Refiner (13.8%). Its mirror, SC, was second. The four opposite-corner blends (DS, SD, IC, CI) together made up 11.0%. The 4.2% with a balanced profile have no single result, so they are not in this table.

RankResultNamePeopleShare
1 CS The Refiner 157 13.8%
2 SC The Steward 141 12.4%
3 C Conscientiousness alone 132 11.6%
4 DC The Finisher 91 8.0%
5 CD The Standard-Bearer 89 7.8%
6 D Dominance alone 81 7.1%
7 I Influence alone 81 7.1%
8 DI The Pacesetter 61 5.4%
9 ID The Rainmaker 45 4.0%
10 IC The Translator 40 3.5%
11 S Steadiness alone 36 3.2%
12 IS The Connector 32 2.8%
13 CI The Trusted Voice 32 2.8%
14 DS The Stalwart 30 2.6%
15 SD The Backbone 23 2.0%
16 SI The Host 16 1.4%

Fig 03 · Primary style by country

DISC styles by country

Only the United States and Australia had more than 100 people. Every other country is grouped, because a split on fewer than 100 would be noise presented as a finding.

WherePeopleCDSIBalanced
United States 466 35.2%21.0%17.6%22.7% 3.4%
Australia 123 39.8%25.2%21.1%12.2% 1.6%
68 other countries 546 36.1%24.5%19.8%14.1% 5.5%

C leads everywhere. In the United States I comes second (22.7%); elsewhere D does. With 123 Australians the margin of error on any one share is roughly nine points, so treat that row as a sketch.

Method

How these figures were produced

The instrument is SMP DISC Styles v1: original statements, an equal number per style, each rated on its own five-point scale, with some on each style worded in reverse. Each style gets a mean from 1 to 5. The highest is the primary style, and a second letter is added when the runner-up sits within 0.4 of it. If all four sit less than 0.4 apart, the result is a balanced profile instead of a style.

We counted everyone who reached a results page in the assessment's first seven weeks online; the window closes on the date at the foot of this page. Each person is counted once, on their first result. People who opened someone else's shared result are excluded. Styles were recomputed from the four scores carried in each result link, and 10 records with out-of-range scores were dropped.

The test asks for no name, email, age, gender or job, so there is no data to split the figures by those. Device was 52.7% desktop and 47.3% mobile.

Read this before quoting a number

This is not the general population. It is people who searched for a DISC assessment and finished the assessment, a majority of them on a desktop, which usually means at work. Careful, task-first people are more likely to do both.

The scales are also not equally easy to agree with. Average scores across everyone were C 3.78, S 3.55, D 3.53 and I 3.30 out of 5. With no norms applied, a scale that is easier to endorse wins more often, which is part of why C leads.

Forced-choice DISC instruments, which most publishers use, produce different distributions by design. Figures from different instruments should not be compared as if they measured the same thing.

Common questions

DISC statistics: questions people ask

Q.01

What is the most common DISC style?

In our data it is C, Conscientiousness: 36.1% of 1,135 people led with it, ahead of D (23.2%), S (19.0%) and I (17.4%). Other publishers report S or I as the most common, from different instruments and different samples. None of these is a census. The honest answer is that it depends on who was measured and how.

Q.02

What is the rarest DISC style?

Among the four primary styles, I was the least common in our sample at 17.4%. Among all sixteen possible results, the rarest was SI, The Host, at 1.4%. Rare does not mean better or worse; it means fewer of the people who took this assessment answered that way.

Q.03

Do most people have a blend?

Yes. 66.7% of results carried a second letter, because the runner-up style sat within 0.4 of the leader on a five-point scale. Only 29.1% had one style standing clear of the other three, and 4.2% had no lead style at all.

Q.04

Can I cite these figures?

Yes, with the sample described: 1,135 self-selected people who completed the free SeeMyPersonality DISC assessment in its first seven weeks online (the window closes on the date at the foot of the page). Please link to this page so readers can see the method and the limits.

About this page

Michael Hodge, BSc Psychology (University of Wollongong), founder of SeeMyPersonality, wrote the assessment and ran this analysis. Research and review standards. The figures will be refreshed as the sample grows, and the date below will change when they are.

Analysis by Michael Hodge Disclosure the data comes from our own free assessment

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