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The DISC profile
Another analysis of personality traits is the DISC profile. DISC is an acronym 
which stands for Dominance, Inducement, Submission and Compliance. 
However, this is often changed to:
D Drive
I Influence
S Steadiness
C Caution or Conscientiousness
The DISC profiling model is based on the psychological theories of William 
Moulton Martston and is explained in his book The Emotions of Normal People 
(1928). Its conclusions were also validated in comparison with Cattell’s 
16 personality traits by Professor Jim Morrison (1991).
DISC is based on the theory that behaviour can be characterized by the 
four personality types listed above. Everybody has elements of the four 
characteristics, but the extent of each one will vary between people. It is 
a tool which can be used to find ways of integrating people into the envi-
ronment, harmonizing personal relations within a group (for example, the 
integration of staff in a new team or department) and developing effective 
intercultural relations. Assessment takes place through a word- associating 
questionnaire that identifies the key personality characteristics and their 
relative strengths.
The cross- cultural application of personality testing
All the widely used tools of personality testing claim to have a degree of 
cross- cultural relevance and have been applied in international profiling. 
These include the ‘big five’, (described above), the Myers- Briggs Type Indicator 
and the Mendenhall and Oddou model (see Chapter 6).
In addition to those already described, cross- cultural researchers have a 
range of cultural profiling tools that offer a more or less precise assessment 
of an individual’s management, cultural style and potential for adaptation 
to other cultural environments. Specifically designed to help executives 
working internationally to define their own management styles and to iden-
tify which cultural groups they are best suited to work with, many of these 
tools use computerized testing as a means of assessment. We can divide 

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268 Cross-Cultural Communication
these into three categories: computer- generated profiles, graphic profiling 
and animated profiling.