ObjectivesIcebreakers/Warmups | Communication | Breaking Down Stereotypes
Group SizeMedium | Large
Nametags, Marker, List of Celebrity Names or demographic characteristics (see variation below)
Writing out the names on the tags ahead of time saves time, and also have brief bios of the people to help
with the debrief.
From the participants perspective, the object of this activity is for each group member to discover the
personality that is written on their own back.
You begin by assigning each group member a “personality” by sticking a nametag with the name of a famous
person or character to his or her back. DO NOT show this nametag to the participant! Participants should be
able to view the personalities of all other group members, just not their own.
You then instruct the group to mingle, and ask questions of the other "guests at the party." Individuals can
ask yes or no questions about their personalities of others in the group, such as “Am I a woman? Am I a
Instruct participants to ask each member of the group only one question at a time, moving on to another person
after each question. Encourage participants not to offer hints.
- You can also use this activity to adress issues of stereotypes by intentionally diversifying our group of
celebrities or simply assigning demographic characteristics instead of famous people e.g.
- an asian-american divorced father of 3
- a gay male iraqi war veteran
- a single female bank president
- an african-american congresswoman
- what was challenging about this activity?
- What did you notice about the kinds of questions you or others asked?