Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

Other lasting contributions associated with the

Chicago Jury Project include the initiation of research

on a remarkably diverse set of legal topics, devoting

attention to civil as well as criminal juries, using a

multidisciplinary approach with individuals from var-

ious fields, and publishing project findings in legal as

well as psychology journals. By any standard, the

number of publications resulting from the project’s

work is impressive, and there is no doubt that their

widespread dissemination in different outlets is a

major reason why the Chicago Jury Project is still so

well-known today. These publications provided a

number of descriptive findings based on large samples

that provided empirical benchmarks for later work,

including estimates of the frequency of jury trials,

hung juries, and judge-jury agreement and a first por-

trait of deliberation that included foreperson selection

and the power of early majority.

Alas, one unfortunate aspect of the project may

have stemmed from the fairly cynical view of deliber-

ation offered in The American Jury(1966).The color-

ful yet deterministic “dark room” metaphor may have

inadvertently dissuaded a generation of jury scholars

from taking an active interest in the dynamics of

deliberation, and in some respects, it may continue to

dampen interest in what happens behind the closed

door of the jury room. Nonetheless, even 50 years

later, the scope and accomplishments of the Chicago

Jury Project remain remarkable, and it truly deserves

its lustrous reputation as a seminal event in the field of

psychology and law.

Dennis J. Devine

See also Insanity Defense, Juries and; Jury Decisions Versus

Judges’ Decisions; Jury Deliberation; Jury Selection

Further Readings

Broeder, D. (1958). The University of Chicago Jury Project.

Nebraska Law Review, 38,744–760.

Kalven, H., Jr., & Zeisel, H. (1966). The American jury.

Boston: Little, Brown.

Simon, R. J. (1967). The jury and the defense of insanity.

Boston: Little, Brown.

Strodtbeck, F. L., & Lipinski, R. M. (1985). Becoming first

among equals: Moral considerations in jury foreman

selection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

49,927–936.

Zeisel, H., Kalven, H., Jr., & Buchholz, B. (1959). Delay in

the court.Boston: Little, Brown.

CHILDABUSE POTENTIAL

(CAP) INVENTORY

Psychologists are often asked to evaluate and to provide

testimony about parental capacity. The Child Abuse

Potential (CAP) Inventory, a measure originally designed

to screen parents for child physical abuse risk, is fre-

quently used as a measure of general parental capacity.

The CAP Inventory is a 160-item, forced-choice

(agree/disagree) self-report questionnaire. It contains a

77-item physical abuse scale, six descriptive factor

scales (distress, rigidity, unhappiness, problems with

child and self, problems with family, and problems

from others), and three validity scales (lie, random

response, and inconsistency). The three validity scales

are used in different combinations to form three

response distortion indexes (faking good, faking bad,

and random response). The CAP Inventory also con-

tains two special scales: the ego-strength and loneliness

scales. The Inventory has been translated into more

than 25 languages, including multiple Spanish transla-

tions. Although the available data on the translated ver-

sions of the CAP Inventory are generally positive, the

amount of published data on the reliability and validity

of the CAP Inventory translations is highly variable.

Background

An original pool of CAP Inventory items was devel-

oped following an exhaustive review of the theoretical

and empirical literature that described parental psycho-

logical and interpersonal risk factors thought to be

associated with child physical abuse. In constructing

the CAP Inventory, an effort was made to avoid using

items that represented static risk factors. Items were

included in the current 77-item abuse scale based on

their ability to distinguish between known child physi-

cal abusers and matched comparison parents in valida-

tion studies. Furthermore, in selecting the final list of

abuse scale items, an effort was made to exclude items

that were correlated with demographics characteristics.

Reliability

Internal consistency estimates for the CAP Inventory

physical abuse scale range from .92 to .96 for general

population parents and from .95 to .98 for child

physical abusers. Internal consistency estimates are

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