The Blacky Pictures Test's worth as a source of useful data was questioned by psychologists, among them Hans Eysenck, and they since have fallen out of use.
Gerald Blum created the Blacky Pictures Test in 1947,[1] when there were hopes of discovering deeper knowledge of changes in personality as psychosexual development advances.
[5] Each of the 12 cartoons used in the test illustrates either a different stage of psychosexual development or an object relationship using four main characters: Blacky, Mama, Papa and Tippy.
Results are analyzed and interpreted to find that the subject has a "strong" personality type such as anal, oral or phallic, corresponding to one of the psychosexual development stages.
[5] When the Blacky Pictures were first created in 1947, their main purpose was to help the analyst understand the changes in a child's personality as he or she progressed through the Freudian stages of psychosexual development.
[4] The Blacky Pictures were shown by a psychoanalyst to a patient and the subject's reactions were analyzed in relation to the Freudian personality traits.
[7] In 1950 several studies found results from the analysis of Blacky Pictures consistent with Freudian psychoanalytic theory, providing some support for the construct validity of the test.
Experimental techniques found that Blacky Pictures were accurate in predicting behavior associated with the psychosexual personality types, in both individual and group settings.
[7] When Blacky Pictures first began to be used, the interpretations and conclusions made by examiners appeared to have been consistent across different scorers.
[9] After several years of limited use, Blacky Pictures began to be disregarded as a legitimate tool for analysis and eventually fell out of use altogether.