Group Activities to Explore Unconscious Bias (2025)

Elizabeth Springstead

9 Group Activities to Explore Unconscious Bias (2025)

Elizabeth Springstead

I found the module that discussed identifying and acknowledging our own implicit biases interesting. I found a site that provides classroom and group leaders with some engaging activities to help individuals see how their implicit biases can have an effect on the environment.

Top 8 Group Activities to Explore Unconscious Bias.

Another activity that I think would be fun to administer in the classroom would be pairing students up and having them do a one-minute interview with one another. The partner then has to tell the rest of the class what they learned about their partner.

The Different Types of Unconscious Biases

There are many types of unconscious bias, and, unfortunately, not all of them are easy to detect. Understanding the different kinds that exist and how they may affect your judgment is the first step toward reducing their impact.

Let’s explore some common examples that can often influence our behaviour and decisions without us even noticing:

Affinity Bias: Our tendency to favour people who share similar interests, backgrounds, or experiences to our own.
Gender Bias: The unconscious preference for one gender over another. This is most often seen in hiring practices and workplace interactions.
Group Bias: The inclination to support or prefer members of our own group while being critical of those in other or new groups.
Similarity Bias: Favouring individuals who we perceive as being like ourselves, which can limit diverse perspectives.
Implicit Association: The automatic association we make between certain qualities and particular groups.
Language Bias: Preferences based on someone’s native language or accent, which can affect communication and collaboration in diverse teams.
Sexual Orientation Bias: The unconscious attitudes or stereotypes about people based on their sexual orientation, impacting inclusion and fairness.
Confirmation Bias: The tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs.
Halo Effect: The bias where our overall impression of a person influences how we feel and think about their character.
Horns Effect: The tendency to allow one negative trait to overshadow all other traits of a person.

Unconscious Bias Icebreaker Activities

Five Clues
Each participant secretly writes five little-known facts or clues about themselves on a blank index card and signs their name at the bottom. Collect and shuffle all the cards, then challenge the room to identify the person on the card using as few clues as possible. Read one clue at a time, and award points to whoever guesses correctly. Continue until all cards have been identified. This activity helps uncover hidden assumptions and biases in a way that’s fun and interactive.

Who Am I?
Each participant writes the name of a famous person or character on a sticky note and places it on another participant’s forehead. Everyone then asks yes or no questions to figure out their identity. This game highlights how quickly we can jump to conclusions based on limited information.

Unconscious Bias Group Activities

Culture Shock
This short, no-prop activity very quickly illustrates the impact of assumptions on the relationships of those around us. The exercise invites three groups of people to interact and communicate in a particular manner with all others. Chaos ensues which provides a number of experiences to share, understand and reflect upon.

Bank Robbery
Once again, this team-based puzzle presents a series of facts that, for the most part, group members will overlay with a set of assumptions. Your group’s objective is to identify who robbed the bank, and of course, it’s not who your group expects it to be. Bias, once again, plays a big role in influencing the decision-making processes of the group.

If Then
Form groups consisting of a few people, or form pairs. Invite one person to say a sentence that starts with the word “IF…,” for example, “If you lost your car keys…” Instruct their partner to respond by saying “THEN…” and completing the sentence, like “…then I would have to walk to work.” Repeat this two or more times, and then swap roles. This activity underscores how our immediate responses can reveal underlying biases and assumptions.

Unconscious Bias Workplace Activities

Minute Mysteries

A large number of these lateral thinking puzzles are ideally suited to highlighting the presence of biases. For example, consider this scenario: Romeo and Juliet are found dead lying on the floor in a pool of water. What happened? As with all Minute Mysteries, your group is then invited to ask a series of questions to solve the mystery of how Romeo and Juliet died. Spoiler Alert – I bet you immediately thought of the Shakespearean characters, right? Wrong. They are goldfish, and their tank broke causing them to fall to the floor and die. The key here (your job) is to transfer what your group learns from this (fictional) experience to the real world.

Crumpled

Distribute a sheet of paper and pen to each person in your group. Invite each person to focus on a particular experience that frustrates them, makes them angry, or causes them concern. Ask each person to write this experience on their paper in as few words as possible. When ready, ask everyone to crumple the sheet of paper into a ball.

Immediately, or at a later point, ask each person to open the crumpled paper and flatten it as much as possible. Using whatever pens, markers, and/or craft materials you have available, ask each person to transform their paper into something new, such as adding a doodle, colouring it in, or folding it into something. When ready, invite one or more members of your group to share what they created. This activity demonstrates how reframing our experiences can help personally reduce bias and foster a more positive outlook.

Accepting Yourself

Schedule this exercise after a significant, possibly lengthy program experience. Distribute one Accepting Yourself worksheet to each person. Invite each person to complete the first section of the worksheet (allow 10 minutes). When ready, invite one person to start by sharing their thoughts on the first section. Next, invite the rest of your group to share any additional strengths they see in this person. Ask a volunteer to record these extra thoughts and affirmations on the individual’s worksheet so they may be present to the feedback from others. This process helps individuals see themselves through the eyes of others, reducing inner biases and building self-acceptance.

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Diversity and Social Justice – Faculty Guide (2025 Edition) Copyright © 2021 by LWTech DSJ Faculty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.