Activity created by and contributed to Department of Organizational Learning DEI Resources by Jeff Witt, Diversity/Inclusion Specialist at
University Library.
INTERNAL & EXTERNAL DIMENSIONS OF IDENTITY
This activity encourages team members to learn about and explore their identities by using an identity
wheel. An identity wheel can be one representation of self, organized into multiple dimensions, like
personality, internal dimensions, external dimensions, and organizational dimensions.
This activity will help teams…
Identify and reflect on various aspects of their identity.
Build trust by learning more about one another.
Begin by providing each participant with a copy of the identity wheel handout. Briefly explain the
following about internal and external dimensions:
A person’s core self or personality is at the center of the identity wheel.
Internal dimensions of self are identities that a person is born with; we have very little to no
control over these identities. Internal dimensions might include: age, gender, sexual orientation,
physical ability, ethnicity, and race.
External dimensions of self are more closely related to life experiences. The decisions we make
and the things that happen around us contribute to our external dimensions. External
dimensions might include: geographic location, income, personal habits, recreational habits,
religion and spirituality, educational background, work experience, appearance, parental status,
and marital status.
Encourage each person to add, remove, or alter components of their internal and/or external
dimensions if desired. For example, changing gender as an internal dimension to gender identity;
changing age to generation; adding geographic origin; replacing ethnicity with heritage; etc.
Have each team member take approximately ten minutes to create their own identity wheel by adding
their internal and external dimensions of themselves to the wheel and personalizing them with their
unique identities. Encourage them to consider the size of each dimension; adjust the size of each
segment to represent how much time, thought, effort, and resources if currently occupies for you right
now. For example, an individual with young children may segment off half of the circle representing
their external dimension for “parental status,” while an individual spending much of their time training
for a marathon may segment off a great deal of the circle to represent “recreational habits”.
Once everyone has completed their identity wheel, reconvene as a group and ask for volunteers to
share. Remind everyone that the identities we share with others are our choice; we, individually, get to
decide what, with whom, and when we share parts of our identities. Only share what you would like to
share, and keep private what you would like to keep private.
Activity Template in Appendix