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February 24, 2026Scientific Reports0 citationsOpen Access

Graph clustering and prediction models for DISC-based personality and competency analysis

SSSovan SamantaTATofigh AllahviranlooLMLeo Mršić

Key Points

  • The research aims to enhance DISC profile analysis through graph clustering and predictive modeling for stress outcomes.
  • Utilized a real-world dataset of 195 employees with 97 attributes.
  • Constructed a weighted similarity graph using cosine, exact-match, and Jaccard similarities.
  • Applied modularity-based community detection to identify behavioral groups.
  • Employed Random Forest models for predicting stress outcomes with stratified 5-fold cross-validation.
  • Achieved average accuracy of 52.82% for 4-class stress prediction, above random baseline but below majority-class baseline.
  • Identified sales-related competency levels as significant factors in stress differentiation.
  • Near-perfect accuracy was obtained in competency-group prediction due to information leakage.

Abstract

The DISC framework is widely used to describe behavioral styles in organizations, but it is often applied through static and qualitative interpretation. This study combines graph-based clustering with supervised learning to analyze DISC-style profiles, competencies, and stress outcomes. Using a real-world dataset of 195 employees described by 97 heterogeneous attributes, we construct a weighted similarity graph by fusing (i) cosine similarity of 17 ordinal competency levels, (ii) exact-match similarity of organizational context variables, and (iii) Jaccard similarity of trait-like descriptors. Modularity-based community detection is applied to reveal latent behavioral groups. Random Forest models are then used to predict stress-related outcomes. For 4-class stress prediction (Low, Medium, High, High (Work-related) ), stratified 5-fold cross-validation yields an average accuracy of 52. 82%. This is above the uniform random baseline (25%) but below the majority-class baseline (58. 97\%), indicating moderate predictive signal. Variable-importance analysis suggests that sales-related competency levels contribute strongly to stress differentiation in this cohort. A separate experiment on competency-group prediction reaches near-perfect accuracy, but this is expected because the target is derived from the same competency descriptors used as inputs and therefore reflects information leakage rather than generalizable prediction. Overall, the study shows how DISC assessments can be extended into graph-based and predictive organizational analytics, while also clarifying the limits of what can be inferred from cross-sectional survey attributes.

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Cite This Study

Samanta et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/699d3fd9de8e28729cf64a89https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-41013-4
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