Properties of Willingness Levels

Common v Differentiating Properties

Insofar as the elements have properties in common, these properties are those of RL7-Willingness, the Root Level that emanates the elements.

Common properties:

• positivity: this property is intrinsic to the function of willingness; it relates to being wholehearted in whatever is done.

• energy: the Will (R) is conceived as the reservoir of energy for psychosocial existence and its endeavours. This energy must be available for delivery to endeavours and it is conjectured that this occurs via willingness. There is no reason to postulate negative energy, because absent or minimal amounts of energy present as unwillingness or reluctance.

• variability: because there can be more or less energy, willingness can be more or less intense. If the intensity is zero, there is reluctance. As intensity builds, a person is more and more energized to use the appropriate element.

The school teacher's universal injunction—"must try harder"—is appropriate in principle, but ways to enable that production of energy require clarification of the willingness elements.

While the elements developed in the previous topic seem quite distinct, it is necessary to validate and emphasize distinctions among them. This can be achieved by considering the following properties for each element or level.

• Benefit that is desired, sought and expected.
• Being & Doing i.e. the required internal stance and operative process.
• Fears that are overcome when releasing willingness.
• Uncontrollable factors that can interfere in everyday life.
• Unwillingness (syn. reluctance, reticence, resistance) that has consequences if persistent.
• Handling unwillingness as required in gentle or severe ways.

Try : Keep Trying (L1)

Function:  Trying refers to making a specific attempt even though failure is evidently possible or even likely.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Trying is intrinsically morale boosting, for yourself and often for those around you. Even if you fail, you are rarely worse off unless trying has significant costs. Culture can assist by making trying praiseworthy.
Being (Stance) & Doing (Process)	An inner resolve, 'making up your mind', is what allows trying to occur. Initiation of action then activates the trial.
Fears to be overcome	The fear that failure will expose you, internally or externally, to humiliation and criticism can block attempts. Actual failure is paradoxically a form of success: it proves you tried and deserve admiration for that.
Uncontrollable factors	Luck can generate unfortunate hurdles or provide silent assistance.
Form of Unwillingness	Refusal to try whenever failure threatens, which can ultimately lead to passivity or apathy and produce stagnation.
Handling Unwillingness	Staging the attempt allows the challenge to be addressed piecemeal, and managing the environment can help reduce failure-related fears. Compulsion may be used when all else fails.

Believe: Maintain a Belief (L2)

Function: Believing refers to adhering to and applying a view even if it is doubtful, contested, unproven or untestable.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Believing provides a stabilizing inner reference that can be a focus for personal decisions, as well as being a source of predictability and reassurance for others.
Being (Stance) & Doing (Process)	An inner insistence that a belief is how things are i.e. reflects or represents the truth Affirming the belief to oneself and in public solidifies and confirms the belief.
Fears to be overcome	Everyone has to deal with a fear of being wrong which might have practical consequences or could suggest others are right and therefore better or superior. A deeper fear of inner vacuity applies if a core-self belief collapses. Beliefs can lead to being pigeon-holed or stereotyped, with idiosyncratic beliefs being viewed as irrational or strange.
Uncontrollable factors	When the presence of the belief is recognized by others, it may have implications (e.g. for employment or relationships).
Form of Unwillingness	Focused doubt leading to evasiveness and equivocation about your position. At the extreme, doubt spreads and a person comes across as vacuous. Note: Scepticism is a particular form of belief: not an unwillingness to believe.
Handling Unwillingness	Explanation and re-framing the issue can remove fears based on ignorance and being stereotyped. Social pressure to believe can be activated via propaganda, or emerges from group membership.

Face: Continue Facing (L3)

Function: Facing refers to addressing a relevant reality directly irrespective of its uncongeniality or urges to conform to a common denial of its significance or existence.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Facing up to a relevant reality unblocks a way forward by allowing for thinking, discussing and clarifying. The disturbing reality may be a private matter or about a tricky social situation where there is shared denial.
Being (Stance) & Doing (Process)	Being forthright, candid, straightforward, frank, honest and direct provides the firm ground for facing facts. However, nothing happens unless attention is given to what has to be faced or to an advisor's depiction of the situation or facts to be faced.
Fears to be overcome	Fears of being unable to cope with the reality, often with associated painful feelings of appearing incapable and the consequences of failure.
Uncontrollable factors	Socio-cultural blinkers that are widely shared. Unconscious enduring biases that have become part of a personal identity.
Form of Unwillingness	Distortion and obfuscation of matters directly relevant to personal safety and well-being. The end result is confusion and delusion with activity that is irrelevant to current needs.
Handling Unwillingness	Dialogue about the situation with a trusted friend allows for modulated support and firmness about the reality. Confrontation by an authority who emphasizes the dire consequences of continued avoidance.

Participate: Sustain Participation (L4)

Function: Participation refers to gladly belonging to a social situation or group despite its intrinsic frustrations, demands and inconveniences.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Participating results in becoming valued in the particular group and society in general, and this enables benefiting others as well as yourself.
Being (Stance) & Doing (Process)	Participating involves becoming part of a group or situation as perceived by self and others. This requires submission to the implications of belonging to the group; and the process is joining, either informally or formally.
Fears to be overcome	Fears of being overwhelmed by actual expectations and imagined demands, with the possibility of getting over-committed and being exploited.
Uncontrollable factors	The evolution of any group or social situation is intrinsically unpredictable and conditions may interfere with the desirability of participating.
Form of Unwillingness	Withholding which leads to withdrawal and ultimately to social isolation.
Handling Unwillingness	Encouragement by colleagues can be persuasive. Threats of social punishment or rejection by the group can be intolerable.

Risk: Tolerate Risking (L5)

Function: Risking refers to entering an undertaking for tangible gain despite the potential for significant harm or loss.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Nothing in life is risk-free: you must be able to enter situations where winning a tangible gain is likely.
Being (Stance) & Doing (Process)	Daring yourself to act even though it is evident that harm or loss might result. Deliberately exposing yourself and your resources for the sake of a potential gain.
Fears to be overcome	Fears of serious loss or harm, including fears of being trapped or missing out or being left out. Dangers, and hence fears, are exacerbated the more imperfect the understanding leading to a pressure for certainty.
Uncontrollable factors	The inherent complexity of any social undertaking means that surprises arise from unknowns, both known and new.
Form of Unwillingness	Hesitancy or caution based on timidity, which taken to an extreme leads to privation.
Handling Unwillingness	Incentives can encourage risk-taking and mitigation of specific likely dangers can lessen the likelihood of harm. Force (threats, ultimatums, "burning bridges") can produce compliance that is reluctant and filled with resentment, blame, or fear.

Learn: Value Learning (L6)

Function: Learning refers to acquiring additional knowledge and skills despite the effort required, the uncertain relevance, and the likelihood of errors.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Learning provides for guided assistance via new knowledge and skills relevant to handling situations beyond a person's current capability.
Being (Stance) & Doing (Process)	To get the desired assistance, whether from external input or from one's inner voice, receptivity is essential. Alteration to knowledge and/or skills will be required to remedy the deficiency in ability.
Fears to be overcome	Fears of dependency and therefore vulnerability that could be exploited, for example, by indoctrination.
Uncontrollable factors	The quality standard of any assistance, guidance, teaching, text or even reflection is variable and can be hard to determine in advance or even while learning.
Form of Unwillingness	Laziness shown as not putting in the needed time or effort, which will ultimately lead to weakness. Arrogance, that can interfere at any level, shows here as denials: of ignorance, of the value of learning, of anyone having anything to offer.
Handling Unwillingness	Innovative methods may help, and teaching can be adapted to the individual's specific needs and personality. Examinations and tests give feedback that checks and compares progress.

Trust: Extend Trusting (L7)

Function: Trusting refers to opening up to a new and unknown relationship or situation without any guarantee of benefit or protection from harm.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Trusting provides an openness to possibilities. That means it enables any social relationship or situation to develop as efficiently and positively as it can given its inevitable and usually unknown limitations.
Being (Stance) & Doing (Process)	To assume that the other is well-disposed and events will conspire to evolve positively, trusting calls for an attitude of vulnerability. Self-protection disturbs the other and distorts possibilities. Trusting involves opening oneself to the new and unknown.
Fears to be overcome	Fears that openness will ultimately result in being taken advantage of, let down, manipulated or tricked: all forms of betrayal that then lead to a painful disillusionment and a probable breakdown of the relationship.
Uncontrollable factors	The persistent self-interest of others and the impersonality of social life mean that your trust will often be misplaced.
Form of Unwillingness	Mistrust in order to feel safe, which if persistent can become a form of chronic paranoia, ultimately leading to a life of despair and desolation.
Handling Unwillingness	Reflection can soothe anxieties by reasoning that mistrust encourages mistrust and fosters a downhill damaging spiral. Rigorous prolonged meditation can enable the self to be understood and developed. Dynamic psychotherapy might help because mistrust will emerge and get analysed.

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Table to Assist Comparisons:

L#	Level of Willingness	Stance & Process	Desired Benefit	Fear to be Handled	Unwillingness	Handling Unwillingness
7	Trust	Being: Vulnerability Doing: Opening	Openness to possibility	Betrayal with disillusionment	Mistrust leading to paranoia.	Reflection and meditation, dynamic psychotherapy
6	Learn	Being: Receptivity Doing: Altering	Guided assistance	Dependency and vulnerability	Laziness or arrogance leading to weakness	Adaptive innovative teaching and testing
5	Risk	Being: Daring Doing: Exposing	Likely tangible gain	Significant loss or harm	Timidity leading to privation	Incentives, mitigation of dangers, force.
4	Participate	Being: Submission Doing: Joining	Positive social valuation	Overwhelming demands	Withholding leading to withdrawal and social isolation	Encouragement and threats
3	Face	Being: Forthrightness Doing: Attending	Unblocking a way forward	Inability to cope	Obfuscation leading to confusion and delusion	Dialogue and confrontation
2	Believe	Being: Insistence Doing: Affirming	Stable inner reference	Being wrong	Focussed doubt that can spread leading to vacuity	Explanation and social pressure
1	Try	Being: Resolve Doing: Initiating	Morale boost	Failure leading to criticism and humiliation	Refusal leading to passivity, apathy, stagnation	Staging, environmental management, compulsion.

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Taxonomic principles were used to conjecture the forms and functions that Willingness takes at each level of a presumed hierarchy. The properties of these forms have been further articulated above.

Now it is necessary to check that the proposed ordering fits the formal features of a THEE-type Primary Hierarchy.

• Evidence for hierarchy in the elements of Willingness.

Originally posted: 3-May-2026. Amended: 3-Jun-2026.