Psychological term for 'moving the goalposts' and why it is done?

gormdubhgorm

In recent interactions with a certain poster on boards.ie on two different topics.
It struck me that the pattern of 'debate' was the same with this individual -'moving the goalposts'.

The best analogy I can use is the poster asks for evidence of 'A'.
I provide evidence.
It moves further off topic, when the poster counters with what-a-bout 'AB' can you explain 'AB'?
But if I explain 'AB' the next reply, would be what about 'ABC'?
Then the poster would continue until all options are seemingly exhausted until 'Z'
Then move on to the Russian Cyrillic alphabet!

I know this term is colloquially termed as 'moving the goalposts' but I am wondering what this is referred as in psychology?
I assume it is something to do with trying to 'win' an argument.
Hopefully someone can explain the gist of 'moving the goalposts' phenomenon to me from a psychological viewpoint

I am not qualified in any psychology by the way, I just like to wonder about how people/myself react to situations etc.
So hopefully I can find out what the 'proper term' is and get a book on the issue so I can try and understand it better.
Maybe someone can recommend a book for the layman, that is not too heavy going?

Professor Moriarty

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

In recent interactions with a certain poster on boards.ie on two different topics.
It struck me that the pattern of 'debate' was the same with this individual -'moving the goalposts'.

The best analogy I can use is the poster asks for evidence of 'A'.
I provide evidence.
It moves further off topic, when the poster counters with what-a-bout 'AB' can you explain 'AB'?
But if I explain 'AB' the next reply, would be what about 'ABC'?
Then the poster would continue until all options are seemingly exhausted until 'Z'
Then move on to the Russian Cyrillic alphabet!

I know this term is colloquially termed as 'moving the goalposts' but I am wondering what this is referred as in psychology?
I assume it is something to do with trying to 'win' an argument.
Hopefully someone can explain the gist of 'moving the goalposts' phenomenon to me from a psychological viewpoint

I am not qualified in any psychology by the way, I just like to wonder about how people/myself react to situations etc.
So hopefully I can find out what the 'proper term' is and get a book on the issue so I can try and understand it better.
Maybe someone can recommend a book for the layman, that is not too heavy going?

Sounds like gaslighting. Here is some initial info.

gormdubhgorm

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Sounds like gaslighting. Here is some initial info.

Oh right thanks.
I only recently heard of that from the Ros na Run thread on boards.ie of all things.

Gaslighting is probably a notch or two up from the resulting 'moving the goalposts' actions.
I did not make the link.

is_that_so

Conventionalist twist via Karl Popper and falsifiability? Otherwise it seems to be described as an informal fallacy.

Professor Moriarty

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Oh right thanks.
I only recently heard of that from the Ros na Run thread on boards.ie of all things.

Gaslighting is probably a notch or two up from the resulting 'moving the goalposts' actions.
I did not make the link.

Obviously you're not in an intimate relationship with the poster, but the tactic is the same - to try to confuse and cause the other person to question their reality. You may well be dealing with a sociopathic troll.

SuperRabbit

I don't think there is a specific term for this strategy, but my guess is that it's caused by cognitive dissonance. In this case cognitive dissonance can be the pain caused by being wrong, and "moving the goal posts" is an attempt to resolve that and caused by the fact that they can't see or acknowledge the possible importance of being wrong about the first thing. We even tend to forget facts that don't line up with our worldview, all of us do this.

Leon Festinger did some great work in the ways that people find to resolve cognitive dissonance. Sometimes it's very positive "e.g. it's GOOD i lost my leg, it made me a more compassionate person, and i don't have to feel bad" sometimes it's not so positive"it's GOOD homeless people are homeless because they probably did something to deserve it and i don't have to feel bad"


Your example is complicated by the fact that someone can actually be right about something without being right about the details. Say they say Stanley Kubrick was a great director because he fooled people into thinking humans had gone to the moon. When you finally manage to prove to the person that humans did go to the moon and Kubrick wasn't involved, they start talking about the Shining and how that proves he was a great director, without even acknowledging how much work you did to make them understand about the moon. That doesn't mean they have moved the goalposts.