Book SummaryBiased, by Jennifer L. Eberhardt

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Biased

In Biased, social psychologist Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt compiles findings from her decades of research on the social and neurological roots of implicit bias. When you hear the word “bias,” you may think of conscious prejudice—but the most potent biases are actually subconscious. These implicit biases are normal neurological responses to the culture you grow up in.

In the United States, everyone holds some degree of (often subconscious) antiblack bias, even in black communities. This racial bias doesn’t just influence how you make decisions—it determines what you notice in your environment and what becomes invisible. And in high-stakes situations like police encounters, the consequences of racial bias can be devastating.

In this guide, we’ll learn how bias forms in the brain, how racial bias in particular influences police interactions and impacts every level of the criminal justice system, and how some people use science as a tool to promote racial bias. With this foundation, we’ll then look at how bias impacts every area of our daily lives. Finally, we’ll discuss how implicit bias can transform into explicit racism, as it did during the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Other-Race Effect Is a Form of Categorization

Before we get into the ways bias impacts various parts of daily life, let’s look at why bias exists in the first place: in other words, the brain functions that create it.

Have you ever heard someone say, “They all look alike” about people of another race? That comment doesn’t actually reflect a conscious prejudice—it’s the natural result of human biology. Scientists call this the “other-race effect”: the experience of being able to easily recognize faces of your own race but struggling to identify faces of other races.

The other-race effect is a form of categorization, which is a normal, subconscious brain function that helps us divide all the information we encounter into smaller categories that we can understand. Categorization is not a bad thing by default, but it can easily be hijacked into making harmful generalizations based on race (like, “all black men are dangerous”). Those generalizations are the root of bias.

(Shortform note: One way to avoid this mental reflex is to look for more individuating information about the person. In Superforecasting, authors Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner argue that any new piece of information we get about a person, no matter how irrelevant it seems, makes it harder for us to categorize that person. This is called the “dilution effect.”)

Bias in Science and Pseudoscience

Racial bias is a centuries-old phenomenon that began as a way to justify slave trading—over time, that bias solidified as leading scientists invented baseless theories that black people were not fully human and therefore fundamentally inferior to white people. This process is called scientific racism, and it’s still used to justify antiblack bias to this day. In particular, the association between black people and apes is still alive and well. Sometimes that association is explicit—like in the widespread “ape” and “monkey” comments online after the election of Barack Obama—but it more frequently happens implicitly. In fact, researchers found that the implicit association between black faces and apes is even stronger than the association between black people and crime. That means that even people who consciously confront their own biases can carry that unconscious ape association and thus see black people as subhuman.

Ape Jokes Have Deadly Consequences

Equating black people to apes is dangerous. In 2009, researchers studied the impact of the black-ape association on threats to assassinate Barack Obama. The researchers determined that the black-ape association—particularly in the form of a controversial political cartoon—directly contributed to the unprecedented number of threats on President Obama’s life. These threats were part of the reason the Department of Homeland Security authorized Secret Service protection for then-Senator Obama beginning in 2007, a full 18 months before he was first elected president.

Bias in Housing and Neighborhoods

Bias isn’t just a large-scale social phenomenon. It also impacts very personal decisions—like where to live. Antiblack racial bias led to formal housing segregation laws, and although those laws no longer exist, they laid the groundwork for the de facto housing segregation we see today.

The History of Segregated Housing

In the early 20th century in America, black people migrated northward en masse to escape persecution and look for economic opportunities. To keep black people out of their white neighborhoods, private housing developers began instituting official covenants that forbade white homeowners from renting or selling their homes to black people. These covenants were so widespread that by the time the Supreme Court banned them in 1948, black residents were banned from 80% of the neighborhoods in big cities like Los Angeles. (Shortform note: Whole books have been written on the subject of racist housing policies. For example, The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein examines segregated housing in the United States from a legal and historical standpoint.)

For over 30 years, racial covenants ensured that black homeowners and renters were crowded into tiny neighborhoods, completely segregated from their white neighbors. Those covenants are the origin of the segregated neighborhoods and ethnic ghettos that still exist today....

Biased Summary Shortform Introduction

Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do is a practical guide to the science of implicit bias, or the automatic assumptions we make about other people without even realizing it. These biases are the result of natural cognitive processes—we sort people into categories as a mental shortcut to make the world easier to understand. In the United States, antiblack bias is such an ingrained part of the culture that everyone encodes it to some degree, and that implicit bias impacts where we live, work, and study; how we interact with the criminal justice system; and where we focus our attention.

About the Author

Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt is a social psychologist, a professor, and a recipient of the 2014 MacArthur “genius” grant. She earned her Ph.D. at Harvard and taught at Yale before joining the faculty at Stanford in 1998. At Stanford, she co-founded SPARQ (Social Psychological Answers to Real-World Questions), a “do tank” (rather than a “think tank”) dedicated to turning academic research on racial bias into actionable solutions for real-world change. She also regularly works directly with police departments...

Biased Summary Chapters 1-2: Bias Changes What You See

When you hear the word “bias,” you may think of a conscious form of prejudice. But Eberhardt argues that the most potent biases are actually unconscious, operating without any conscious input or even awareness.

These implicit biases are normal neurological responses to the culture you grow up in—they affect everyone. But, specific cultures create biases against different groups of people. In the United States, everyone encounters and encodes antiblack bias to some degree, even in black communities. This bias doesn’t just influence how you make decisions—it determines what you notice in your environment and what becomes invisible.

In this chapter, we’ll learn how bias develops through the other-race effect and categorization; then, we’ll discuss how that bias gets transmitted to others through parenting and the media. Understanding how bias spreads will help to clarify why racial bias impacts so many areas of daily life.

The Other-Race Effect

Have you ever heard someone say, “They all look alike” about people of another race? Those types of comments can be deeply offensive. (Shortform example: In 2018, Hillary Clinton came under fire for saying, [“I know, they...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on Your Experiences With Bias

Racial bias impacts people of every race. Take a moment to reflect on your experience with bias and your motivation for engaging with this subject.

When you think of racial bias, what images and associations come to mind? (For example, you may think of a moment in your own life, historical examples of bias, racially segregated neighborhoods, or more recent police shootings.)

Biased Summary Chapter 6: Bias in Science and Pseudoscience

Unfortunately, racial bias isn’t a new trend. Racial bias is a centuries-old phenomenon that began as a way to justify slave trading. Over time, that bias solidified as leading scientists invented baseless theories that black people were not fully human and therefore fundamentally inferior to white people. This process is called scientific racism, and it’s one of the biggest reasons that racial bias has persisted for so long.

The History of Scientific Racism

Scientific racism is the false theory that different racial groups have fundamentally different physical and mental traits. According to Eberhardt, supporters of this theory believe those traits are universal, immutable, and objective, meaning that white supremacy and black inferiority are facts of nature rather than social constructs. Throughout history, scientists and academics have used scientific racism to justify their own racial bias as well as the entrenched racial inequality in their societies. (Shortform note: Some scholars, like Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, use the term “[biological...

Shortform Exercise: Compare the Impact of Images and Words

Early images from racist scientific texts are the precursors to modern racist caricatures. Compare the impact of those images to biased speech and writing.

This chapter included an image from the book Types of Mankind that compares sketches of a white person’s skull, a black person’s skull, and a chimpanzee skull. What did you first notice about the image? What stuck out to you?

Shortform Exercise: Think About the Black-Ape Association

The implicit association between black people and apes hasn’t faded with time. Think about why this particular form of bias is so persistent.

Why do you personally think the black-ape association has persisted for so long? Explain your reasoning.

Biased Summary Chapter 7: Bias in Housing and Neighborhoods

So far in this guide, we’ve learned how bias works in the brain and the history of racial bias in science. Now, we’ll see how bias impacts very personal decisions—like where to live. Today, segregation and racial bias in housing is a major problem, especially in large cities. This problem stems from a long history of racist policies that severely limited where black people could buy or rent property. Although most of those policies no longer exist, they created a pattern of de facto segregation that persists to this day.

(Shortform note: Whole books have been written on the subject of racist housing policies. For example, The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein examines segregated housing in the United States from a legal and historical standpoint.)

In this chapter, we’ll explore the history of racist residential policies, the link between housing discrimination and ideas about cleanliness and disease, and the way those ideas play out on modern platforms like Nextdoor and Airbnb.

The History of Segregated Housing

In the early 20th century, private housing developers began instituting official real estate...

Biased Summary Chapter 8: Bias in Schools

In Chapter 7, we saw how racial bias impacts where people live and how they interact with the community around them. That bias also extends into the classroom. Schools are no longer legally segregated, but black and white students still don’t have truly equal educational experiences. In this chapter, we’ll discuss the ways racial bias impacts black students, why “not seeing color” doesn’t help students, and the innovative ways that educators can reduce racial bias in their classrooms.

School Integration

In the United States today, many people assume that school segregation is a thing of the past because there are no longer laws explicitly barring black students from certain schools. However, in reality, school segregation has increased in the last few decades. The number of schools where white students make up less than 10% of the population has more than tripled. Meanwhile, the proportion of black students who attend segregated schools has increased by 11%. This is a problem because research shows that students of all races learn best in integrated schools....

Shortform Exercise: Design a New History Class

In schools today, history curricula often gloss over difficult topics like slavery and the Holocaust. Think about the changes you would make to give students a more accurate understanding of history and the way it impacts their current reality.

Think back to your own history lessons in school. How did your teachers address racially-charged topics like slavery or the Civil Rights Movement?

Biased Summary Chapter 10: Bias in the Workforce

As we’ve seen, racial bias affects people at home and in school. That same bias shapes the world of work in nearly every way, from crafting a resume to getting an interview to navigating a diverse workplace.

In this chapter, we’ll discuss the hurdles people of color face in applying to jobs and the strategies they use to overcome them. Then, we’ll examine how companies like Starbucks respond to instances of blatant racial bias in their businesses. Finally, we’ll explore the innovative ways businesses are attempting to sidestep that bias, like implementing company-wide bias training sessions.

Bias in the Job Application Process

Racial bias in the workforce is a massive, widespread problem. In fact, the unemployment rate for young black people is twice as high as it is for young white people. That’s partly because of the housing discrimination we discussed in Chapter 7, meaning black teens and young adults are more likely to live in low-income neighborhoods with fewer job options. (Shortform note: Eberhardt doesn’t mention it, but the racially biased criminal justice system is also a major driver of black unemployment. In _[The New Jim...

Biased Summary Chapter 3: Bias in Cases of Police Brutality

Now that we understand how bias develops and spreads to others, we can examine how racial bias impacts specific situations, beginning with police brutality. Eberhardt approaches this complex topic in a unique way: by using the 2016 murder of Terence Crutcher (an unarmed black man who was fatally shot by an Oklahoma police officer) as a case study representing the wider problem of police brutality. She breaks that encounter down into five crucial decision points and examines how racial bias played a role in each of them.

Police Brutality in the United States

The United States has a damning history of violent police interactions; in those situations, racial bias can have life-or-death consequences. (Shortform note: In 2020, police officers killed 1,127 people; 28% of those people were black.)

According to Eberhardt, the ubiquity of camera phones and the increased use of body cameras in police departments means that more and more of these murders are caught on film and shared online, putting a much more personal face to the statistic. In Cleveland, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was playing in a park with a toy gun when he was [shot and...

Biased Summary Chapters 4-5: Bias in the Criminal Justice System

Violent police interactions don’t happen in a vacuum—they both shape and are shaped by societal context and local perceptions of the police. In this chapter, we’ll see how the daily realities of police work can increase officers’ racial bias and lead to burnout. Finally, we’ll see how bias creates racial disparities at every level of the criminal justice system, from discretionary stops to cash bail, plea bargains, and death sentences.

Interpreting Data Based on Experience

Eberhardt frequently works with the Oakland Police Department, which is required to collect data on every police stop as part of a federal settlement. In 2014, the author and her colleagues analyzed the data for a 13-month period (roughly 28,000 stops) and determined that Oakland police disproportionately stopped and searched black people, who made up only 28% of Oakland’s population but accounted for 60% of police stops. Officers were also significantly more likely to conduct searches of black people during a stop (65%) than white people (23%). During those stops, 72% of Oakland officers had handcuffed a black person who was not under arrest, but only 26%...

Shortform Exercise: Imagine a Better System

Eliminating institutional bias in the American criminal justice system is a tall order. Think about what your approach would be to this problem.

Imagine you’ve been tasked with revamping the criminal justice system so that people of every race are treated fairly. What’s the very first thing you would change? Why?

Biased Summary Chapter 9: From Implicit Bias to Explicit Racism

Until now, we’ve focused on the role of implicit biases that people often aren’t even aware they have. However, in the right circumstances, those implicit biases can bubble up to conscious awareness and become explicit racism. This was the case in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, when hundreds of white nationalists and neo-Nazis descended on the campus of the University of Virginia (UVA) before a “Unite the Right” rally. That march and its aftermath marked a fundamental change in the national conversation about race.

In this chapter, we’ll examine the violent Charlottesville march in more detail, the impact it had on UVA students, and what role universities should play in combating racial bias on campus.

The Unite the Right Rally

The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville was the culmination of growing racial and political tensions across the country. To fully understand the way those events impacted how we think about implicit and explicit bias, we need to understand what happened before, during, and after the rally itself.

Before the Rally

The rally itself was originally meant to protest the proposed removal of a statue of Civil War General Robert E. Lee...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on Your Own Biases

Implicit racial bias can creep into your thoughts or actions even when you’re actively trying to avoid it. Take a moment to explore your own relationship to racial bias.

As you read this guide, which examples of racial bias did you recognize from your own past thoughts or behaviors? For example, maybe you’ve noticed yourself locking your car door without thinking when a black person walks by. (Remember, biases are the automatic result of living in a culture that values one group over another. Everyone holds some form of racial bias.)