When Did You Last Lose Track of Time?1. Ask: "When did you last look up and find that an hour had gone?" Neighbors tell each other what they were doing.2. Collect ten of the activities on the board.3. Ask what they share. Push toward how hard the activity was, set against the person's skill.4. Name it: flow, the state of being fully absorbed in what one is doing, with a changed sense of time. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi first presented it in 1975.Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: none. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Fifteen Words, Read Once: Which Ones Came Back?1. Read fifteen unrelated words aloud, one a second, and say nothing else. Pens stay down. 2. Ask: "Which words can you write down, in any order?" Give one minute. 3. Read the list again. Students raise a hand for each word they wrote, and you tally the first three, the middle three and the last three on the board. 4. Name it: the serial-position effect, the tendency to recall the first and last items of a series best and the middle ones worst. The class reads its own tally against that. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 8 min. Props: a list of fifteen words, paper and a pen for each student. Noise: quiet. First day: yes.
Guess the Rule Behind 2, 4, 61. Write 2, 4, 6 on the board and ask: "These three numbers fit a rule I have in mind. What is the rule?" 2. Students call out other sets of three numbers. Answer only "fits" or "does not fit", and write each set under a check or a cross. 3. Anyone who thinks they know the rule writes it down first and then says it. Keep going until someone finds it: any three numbers in rising order. 4. Count how many sets on the board were tries that did not fit. Then name confirmation bias: in Peter Wason's task of 1960, people mostly tested sets that obeyed their own guess. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 7 min. Props: none. Noise: loud. First day: yes.
Read It Again or Close the Page? A Two-Day Test1. Everyone reads the same half page of text for two minutes. The course outline will do. 2. Ask: "Which will help more next week, reading it again or writing down what you remember?" Take a show of hands. 3. The left half of the room reads it again for two minutes. The right half closes the page and writes down everything it can recall. 4. At the next meeting, give both halves the same five questions and compare the scores. Then name the testing effect: long-term memory is helped when part of study time goes to retrieving the material. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 8 min. Props: the same half page of text for each student. Noise: quiet. First day: yes.
Say the Ink Color, Not the Word1. Write two rows of six color words on the board. In the first row the marker matches the word. In the second, write RED in blue, GREEN in red and so on. 2. Ask: "How fast can you say the color of the ink, left to right?" Partners time each other on the first row, then on the second. 3. Take a show of hands: who was slower on the second row, and who slipped and read a word? 4. Name it: the Stroop effect. People typically take longer and make more errors naming the ink when the word spells a different color. Players: 8 to 60. Time: 6 min. Props: markers in three colors and a clock with a second hand. Noise: loud. First day: yes.
Twelve Letters, Shown Twice1. Write USAD NAAT MGPS on the board for five seconds, then cover it. Ask: "How many of the twelve letters can you write, in order?" 2. Students count how many they got right. 3. Now write the same twelve letters as USA DNA ATM GPS for five seconds. Cover them and ask again. 4. Name it: chunking, binding small pieces into a meaningful whole so that they take up less of working memory. The letters did not change. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 5 min. Props: paper and a pen for each student. Noise: quiet. First day: yes.
Two Lines on the Board: Which One Is Longer?1. Before class, draw two level lines of exactly the same length, one above the other. Give one an arrowhead at each end and the other an open fork at each end, like the tail of an arrow. 2. Ask: "Which line is longer?" Students point up or down. 3. Hand a ruler to a student in the front row, who measures both lines and reads out the numbers. 4. Name it: the Müller-Lyer illusion, devised in 1889. Ask who still sees one line as longer after hearing the measurement. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 4 min. Props: a ruler. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Was the Word Sleep on the List?1. Read this list aloud, one word a second: bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket, doze, slumber, snore, nap, peace, yawn, drowsy. 2. Students write down every word they remember. Then ask: "Who wrote down sleep?" 3. Read the list again, slowly. The word was never on it. 4. Name it: a false memory. The fifteen words are the example list of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott procedure, in which people often recall a related word that was absent. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: paper and a pen for each student. Noise: quiet. First day: yes.
Social psychology: attitudes and first impressions 6
Could Somebody Open the Door?1. Early in the hour, say to the whole room: "Could somebody open the door?" Count the seconds in your head until someone moves. 2. A few minutes later, look at one student and say: "You, by the window, could you close it again?" Count again. 3. Tell the class both numbers and ask: "Why was one faster?" 4. Name it: diffusion of responsibility, in which a person is less likely to take responsibility for acting when others are present. Players: 12 to 200. Time: 5 min. Props: none. Noise: quiet. First day: yes.
Eyes Closed: What Is Your Neighbor Wearing?1. Each student writes a guess: out of ten classmates, how many could say the color of my top with their eyes closed? 2. Everyone closes their eyes. Ask: "Raise a hand if you can name the color of the top worn by the person on your left." 3. Count the hands aloud, work out how many that is in ten, and let everyone look. 4. Ask whose guess was higher. Then name the spotlight effect: people tend to believe they are noticed more than they really are. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 4 min. Props: paper and a pen for each student. Noise: quiet. First day: yes.
Late Again: A Reason for Them, a Reason for You1. Ask: "A stranger walks into a lecture twenty minutes late. Why?" Each student writes the first reason that comes to mind. 2. Ask the second question: "You walk in twenty minutes late. Why?" They write again. 3. Draw two columns on the board, The person and The situation. By a show of hands, sort the reasons given for the stranger, then the reasons students gave for themselves. 4. Compare the columns. Then name the fundamental attribution error: observers tend to explain other people's behavior by personality and to underrate the situation. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: paper and a pen for each student. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Same Six Words, Opposite Order1. Hand the left half of the room a slip that describes a stranger as curious, hardworking, impulsive, critical, stubborn and envious. The right half gets the same six words in reverse order. 2. Ask: "How much would you like this person, from 1 to 10?" Everyone writes a number without talking. 3. Average each half on the board, then show both slips side by side. 4. Name it: the primacy effect in impression formation, studied by Solomon Asch. First words can color how later ones are read. Compare that with the two averages. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 7 min. Props: two versions of a slip, one for each half of the room. Noise: quiet. First day: yes.
Seven People Before You Name the Wrong Line1. Draw one line on the left of the board and three lines marked A, B and C on the right. Only B matches the first, and nobody could miss it. 2. Ask: "Seven people answer before you, and all seven say C. What do you say aloud?" Students write B or C on a slip, fold it and pass it in. 3. Count the slips on the board. 4. Tell the class that Solomon Asch ran this in the 1950s with seven actors and one real participant, who answered last. Ask what would make it easier to say B. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: a slip of paper for each student. Noise: quiet. First day: yes.
What Share of the Room Agrees With You?1. Ask: "Would you rather give a ten-minute talk or write a five-page paper?" Everyone writes T or P. 2. Under the letter, each student writes a guess: what percentage of this class chose the same as I did? 3. Count hands for each choice and work out the two real percentages on the board. 4. Ask who guessed too high. Then name the false consensus effect: people tend to overestimate how far others share their choices and views. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: paper and a pen for each student. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Developmental psychology 5
A Line From Birth to Ninety, Filled With Firsts1. Draw a line across the board from birth to age ninety, marked every ten years. 2. Ask: "At what age does a person usually first walk, read a sentence, have a best friend, take a job, become the one others ask for advice?" Give each row one of the five to place. 3. One student from each row marks the row's answer on the line. 4. Ask which mark the room disagrees with most. Leave the line on the board and say that the unit comes back to it. Players: 8 to 60. Time: 7 min. Props: none. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
How Old Were You in Your Earliest Memory?1. Ask: "How old were you in the earliest thing you can remember?" Each student writes only the age on a slip. Nobody describes the memory. 2. Collect the slips and mark each age with an X on a number line from 0 to 10 on the board. 3. Ask what the class notices about the left end of the line. 4. Name it: childhood amnesia, the inability of adults to retrieve memories of events from before the age of three to four. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: a slip of paper for each student. Noise: quiet. First day: yes.
One Now or Two in Fifteen Minutes?1. Put one wrapped treat on the front desk. Ask: "You are four years old. You may eat this now, or wait alone with it for fifteen minutes and get two. What do you do?" 2. Students stand for now and stay seated for wait. 3. Ask the ones who would wait: "What would you do with your eyes and hands for fifteen minutes?" Collect five tricks on the board. 4. Name the study: the Stanford marshmallow experiment on delayed gratification, run by Walter Mischel in 1970. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 5 min. Props: one wrapped treat. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Tall Glass, Wide Glass: Which Has More?1. Fill two identical glasses to the same line and get the class to agree that they hold the same amount. 2. Pour one into a taller, thinner glass. Ask: "What would a four-year-old say now, and what would a nine-year-old say?" 3. Neighbors agree on both answers and on the reason the younger child would give. 4. Name it: conservation. In Jean Piaget's theory the ability is absent at ages 2 to 7 and develops from 7 to 11. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 5 min. Props: two identical glasses, a tall thin glass and water. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Where Will Sally Look for Her Marble?1. Stand two paper figures on the desk, Sally with a basket and Anne with a box. Sally puts a marble in her basket and leaves. Anne moves it to her box. 2. Ask: "Sally comes back. Where will she look for her marble?" Everyone answers, and it will seem too easy. 3. Ask the real question: "What would a three-year-old say, and why?" Neighbors talk for one minute. 4. Name it: the Sally-Anne test of false belief, named in a study of 1985. Children under four mostly answer with the box, where the marble really is. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: two paper figures, a basket, a box and a marble. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Positive psychology 4
A Year After the Good News1. Ask: "You get the news you have been hoping for. On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you that day?" Everyone writes a number. 2. Ask the second question: "And one year later, on an ordinary Tuesday?" They write a second number. 3. By a show of hands, count who wrote a lower number the second time and who wrote the same. 4. Name the idea: the hedonic treadmill, the conjecture that people return fairly quickly to a stable level of happiness after major good or bad events. Ask what would count as evidence against it. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 5 min. Props: paper and a pen for each student. Noise: quiet. First day: yes.
Ten Research Questions: Going Wrong or Going Right?1. Ask: "What is a question a psychologist might study?" Collect ten on the board without comment. 2. With the class, mark each one: is it about something going wrong, or about something going right? 3. Count the two kinds. 4. Tell the class that positive psychology began as a domain in 1998, when Martin Seligman made it the theme of his term as president of the American Psychological Association, in reaction to a focus on mental illness. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: none. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Three Things That Went Well, Sorted Into Five Columns1. Ask: "What are three small things that went well for you this week?" Everyone writes three lines. 2. Write five headings on the board: Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishments. 3. Volunteers read out one line each, and the class says which column it belongs in. Stop at twelve lines. 4. Name the headings: PERMA, the summary Martin Seligman gave in 2011. Ask which column filled first. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 7 min. Props: paper and a pen for each student. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
When Did You Last Lose Track of Time?1. Ask: "When did you last look up and find that an hour had gone?" Neighbors tell each other what they were doing. 2. Collect ten of the activities on the board. 3. Ask what they share. Push toward how hard the activity was, set against the person's skill. 4. Name it: flow, the state of being fully absorbed in what one is doing, with a changed sense of time. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi first presented it in 1975. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: none. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Abnormal psychology 4
Rare Is Not the Same as Disordered1. Ask five questions by a show of hands: "Who is left-handed? Who can wiggle their ears? Who speaks three languages? Who has a birthday on a holiday? Who has lived in three countries?" 2. Write each count on the board beside the size of the class. 3. Ask: "Each of these is rare in this room. Is any of them a disorder? Why not?" 4. Name it: statistical abnormality. A trait found in a low percentage of people is not, for that reason alone, an illness. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 4 min. Props: none. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Same Behavior, Four Settings1. Describe one behavior: a person speaks aloud for a minute with nobody near. 2. Ask: "How odd is that on a stage, at a graveside, on a hands-free call and in a silent exam hall?" Groups of three rate each setting from 1 to 5. 3. Collect the four ratings from each group on the board. 4. Ask what changed, since the behavior did not. Say that context is one of the first things the course looks at. Players: 8 to 60. Time: 6 min. Props: none. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Six Everyday Habits: What Would Make One a Problem?1. Write six habits on the board: eats the same lunch every day, is afraid of spiders, talks to a pet, counts the stairs, keeps every ticket stub, sleeps until noon on Saturdays. 2. Ask: "What would have to be true before any of these became a problem?" Groups of four write down what they would need to know. 3. Sort the answers on the board under three headings: how rare it is, how much it upsets the person, how much it gets in the way of daily life. Add a fourth heading if the class needs one. 4. Ask whether any one heading settles the question alone. Say that the course spends weeks on what "abnormal" means. Players: 8 to 60. Time: 8 min. Props: paper and a pen for each student. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Three Rules Before the First Case Study1. Write two rules on the board: no real names in any example, and nobody diagnoses a classmate, a relative or a person in the news. 2. Ask: "What third rule would make this a class you could speak in?" Groups of four agree on one. 3. Each group reads its rule. The class votes by a show of hands for the one to add. 4. Everyone copies the three rules onto the first page of their notes. Add that anyone may pass on any question, all term. Players: 8 to 60. Time: 7 min. Props: none. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Pop psychology: myth or finding? 4
Do We Use Only Ten Percent of Our Brains?1. Ask: "True or false: people use only ten percent of their brains." Students stand for true and stay seated for false. 2. Ask the room where people have met the idea: a film, a poster, a relative. 3. Tell the class that it is false, and so widespread that it has a name, the ten-percent-of-the-brain myth, often wrongly credited to Albert Einstein. 4. Ask: "What would we have to see to believe it?" Collect three kinds of evidence on the board. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 4 min. Props: none. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Left-Brained or Right-Brained? Walk to a Wall1. Ask: "Are you a left-brained person or a right-brained person?" Students walk to the left wall, to the right wall, or to the middle for neither. 2. Each wall gets thirty seconds to say what its label is supposed to mean. 3. Ask the middle group why they stood there. 4. Tell the class that the idea of left-brained and right-brained people is counted as a widespread myth that oversimplifies how the two hemispheres work. Everyone sits down again. Players: 8 to 60. Time: 5 min. Props: none. Noise: loud. First day: yes.
One Personality Reading for the Whole Room1. Give every student a folded paper headed Your reading. All the papers carry the same five lines, such as "You can be hard on yourself" and "Some days you want company and some days you want to be left alone". 2. Ask: "How well does this describe you, from 1 to 5?" Take a show of hands for 4 and 5. 3. Neighbors swap papers and find that they are the same. 4. Name it: the Barnum effect, also called the Forer effect. People rate vague, general descriptions as accurate when they believe the description was written for them. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: a copy of one reading for each student. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
Visual, Auditory or Hands-On: Does It Change Your Score?1. Ask: "Are you a visual learner, an auditory learner or a hands-on learner?" Students hold up one, two or three fingers. 2. Ask the second question: "Would you score higher if every lesson were taught your way?" Thumbs up or thumbs down. 3. Tell the class that studies contradict that second idea, known as the meshing hypothesis, and that there is little evidence for most learning-style models. 4. Ask what kind of study could test it, and sketch the design the class suggests on the board. Players: 8 to 200. Time: 6 min. Props: none. Noise: medium. First day: yes.
How it works
Each of these psychology icebreaker questions is put to the whole class, shows a small effect in the students' own answers and ends with its name. They work as icebreakers for the first day of psychology: nobody needs the textbook.
Read the full guide
Psychology class icebreakers for a unit on attitudes
As attitudes and social psychology icebreakers, the six under Social psychology: attitudes and first impressions make the class its own data. In What Share of the Room Agrees With You? students guess how many classmates chose as they did, and then the hands are counted.
Icebreaker activities for abnormal psychology
These four ask nobody about their own health. Six Everyday Habits: What Would Make One a Problem? has the class build its own tests for the word abnormal, and Three Rules Before the First Case Study settles how the room will talk.
Questions and answers
What are good icebreakers for the first day of psychology?
Fifteen Words, Read Once: Which Ones Came Back? and Was the Word Sleep on the List? Each takes eight minutes or less, needs only paper and a list, and gives the class a result of its own to explain before any reading is set.
Which are the positive psychology icebreakers?
Four. When Did You Last Lose Track of Time? names flow, Three Things That Went Well sorts answers under the five PERMA headings, A Year After the Good News meets the hedonic treadmill, and Ten Research Questions shows what the field reacted against.
What are developmental psychology icebreakers?
Where Will Sally Look for Her Marble? and Tall Glass, Wide Glass: Which Has More? Students answer first for themselves and then for a three- or four-year-old; the gap between the two answers is what the unit explains. Three more are in the same group.
Are there pop psychology icebreakers?
Yes, four. Each starts from a belief most students have met: ten percent of the brain, left-brained and right-brained people, learning styles, and a personality reading that fits everyone. The class votes first and then hears what the named source reports.