From “Who Are You?” to “We Are Us!”: Experiential Icebreakers Grounded in Social Identity Theory

Forming teams, supporting relationships, and building trust can be challenging when engaging with increasingly socially anxious, disconnected, and diverse student cohorts. We describe an icebreaker that, through low-risk classroom interactions, allows students to socially identify with a novel in-group and enter into friendly competition with out-groups within a classroom environment. The activities provide abundant opportunities to relate in-class experiences to Social Identity Theory, team dynamics, and other related management and OB theories.