Can We Overcome Racial Bias? 'Biased' Author Says To Start By Acknowledging It

Jennifer Eberhardt has been interested in issues of race and bias since she was a child.

The African-American Stanford University psychology professor — and author of a new book called Biased -- grew up in an all-black neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. Then, one day, Eberhardt's parents announced the family was moving to the Cleveland suburb of Beachwood. When Eberhardt arrived there, she told NPR's Ailsa Chang, she noticed something strange: She could no longer tell people's faces apart.

Now, as an adult, Eberhardt says she realizes that in the majority-white suburb of Beachwood, she was experiencing a phenomenon known as the "" (or "other-race effect") — that's the tendency for people across all races to be better at recognizing faces of their own race.