Comparison
Big Five vs DISC vs Myers-Briggs: which one should your team use?
Use the Big Five when you want a description of a person that research supports: five ranges rather than four styles or sixteen types. DISC and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator are good for giving a team a shared vocabulary, and neither is built for deciding who to hire. Both publishers say so themselves.
Side by side
How the three compare
Same question asked of each: what it measures, where it came from, what research says, and whether its own publisher considers it fit for hiring.
| Point of comparison | Big Five | DISC | Myers-Briggs |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Five broad traits, each a continuous range | Four styles of work behavior: dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness | Four preference pairs, reported together as one of sixteen types |
| What you get back | A position on each of the five ranges | A main style, usually with a secondary one | A four letter type, such as INTJ |
| Where it came from | Decades of analysis of the words people use to describe each other (Goldberg, 1990; John and Srivastava, 1999) | A model of behavior published by William Moulton Marston in 1928 (Marston, 1928). The questionnaires sold today were built later by other people | Jung's theory of psychological types, turned into a questionnaire by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers |
| Independent research | Large, continuing and international | Limited. Most published validity evidence comes from the companies that sell the assessments | Substantial, and much of it critical of the type model (McCrae and Costa, 1989; Pittenger, 2005) |
| Covers emotional stability | Yes, as one of the five traits | No | No. It has no index for it |
| Stability over time | Average levels shift slowly with age (Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer, 2006) | Publishers report that style is stable, though independent evidence is thin | Many people are given a different type when they take it again (Pittenger, 2005) |
| Use in hiring | Validated questionnaires are used in selection, but that needs a proper instrument, job relevance and legal review. Estimates from writing, including ours, are not a substitute | Its publisher does not recommend it for pre-employment screening, and it was not built or validated as a selection instrument | The MBTI Code of Ethics says it is unethical practice to use results to screen job applicants |
Traits and types
Why a range beats a label
Types are easy to remember, and that is most of their appeal. The cost is that everyone who differs by degree gets pushed into one box or another, so two people with nearly identical answers can come out as different types, and someone in the middle is told they are one thing or the other.
When researchers compared the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator against a five-factor measure with 468 adults, they found no support for the idea that it measures genuinely separate types. What it measures is four fairly independent dimensions, which track four of the Big Five (McCrae and Costa, 1989). Reviews have also reported that many people are given a different type when they take the questionnaire again (Pittenger, 2005).
Ranges avoid the problem. They say where someone sits, they let you see when the answer is really that the person is somewhere in the middle, and they leave room to be wrong by a little rather than by a category.
Fair credit
What the other two are good at
Neither is a bad tool. They are answering a different question from the one a seller or a recruiter usually has.
What DISC is good at
Four styles are easy to remember, and a team that shares the vocabulary can talk about how people work without making it personal. It is a fast way to start that conversation in a workshop.
What Myers-Briggs is good at
People find their type memorable and often enjoy discussing it, which makes it a useful opener for talking about differences in a team. Its publisher positions it for self-understanding and development, not for decisions about people.
If your team already speaks DISC, you do not need to abandon it. Treat a style as a hint about a person rather than a measurement, and reach for a trait range when an important message or a real decision depends on reading someone correctly.
In practice
Choosing for your team
For sales and outreach
What you need before a first message is how this person prefers to be communicated with. Any of the three can start that thinking, but most buyers sit near the middle of most traits, which is exactly where a label is least informative and a range is most. Tejesha estimates the five ranges from what a person has published, and tells you how confident it is in each one.
Tejesha for sales teamsFor hiring
Questions
Common questions
- Is the Big Five better than Myers-Briggs?
- For describing a person accurately, yes. When researchers compared the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator with a five-factor measure, they found no support for the idea that it measures genuinely separate types, though its four indices did track four of the five Big Five dimensions (McCrae and Costa, 1989). Myers-Briggs is still a good conversation starter in a team, which is a different job.
- Can I use DISC or Myers-Briggs to decide who to hire?
- No, and both publishers say so. The MBTI Code of Ethics calls it unethical practice to use results to screen job applicants, and the publisher of DISC does not recommend it for pre-employment screening because it was never built or validated as a selection instrument.
- Which personality model has the most research behind it?
- The Big Five, by a wide margin. It came out of decades of work on how people describe themselves and each other, it is the model personality researchers use, and its traits have been studied across countries, ages and job types (Goldberg, 1990; John and Srivastava, 1999). The research Tejesha builds on.
- Our team already uses DISC. Do we have to switch?
- No. A shared vocabulary that people already use has real value. Treat a DISC style as a hint about someone rather than a measurement, and use a trait range when a decision or an important message depends on getting the person right.
Sources
- Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative "description of personality": The Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), 1216-1229.
- John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 102-138). Guilford Press.
- Marston, W. M. (1928). Emotions of normal people. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co.
- McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1989). Reinterpreting the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator from the perspective of the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Personality, 57(1), 17-40.
- Pittenger, D. J. (2005). Cautionary comments regarding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 57(3), 210-221.
- Roberts, B. W., Walton, K. E., & Viechtbauer, W. (2006). Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 132(1), 1-25.
- The Myers & Briggs Foundation. MBTI Code of Ethics. Quoted on the use of results to screen job applicants.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, MBTI and DiSC are trademarks of their respective owners. Tejesha is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to them.
Ranges, with the confidence to match
Tejesha estimates the five traits from public professional writing and says how sure it is about each one, so your team can adapt a message without pretending to know more than it does.