I first became interested in reluctance as a small boy trying to get a few words in edgewise between the pronouncements of my professorial father and the fulminations of my rageaholic mother. I was terrified and timidified at the same time. This was not a good start to becoming a freely expressing adult with no fears of others’ disapproval, a core sensitivity that led me into numerous battles with reluctance on a variety of fronts.

I was thoroughly timidified by both of these worthies and have spent a life time trying to liberate myself from the constraints of re-encoutering them internally in every adult interaction or personal change project.

My fears have cropped up in three main areas that circumscribe the main domains of reluctance in everyday life: reluctance to express, reluctance to engage and reluctance to undertake.

Reluctance to express comes up in writers’ block, speaking up in groups, and voicing your opinions to friends and associates. It participates in reticence, that peculiar from of communication apprehension that is now so thoroughly studied in psychology. Communication anxiety has been defined as the fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons.

My first experience with reluctance to express came in Quaker preparatory school in Poughkeepsie, New York state. Once a week we were called forth to attend silent meeting, a Quaker version of a prayer meeting. The idea was to say what was on your mind, hopefully of a spiritual nature; it was a chance to work out your thoughts and share them with a silent, and supposedly forgiving, audience.

I could never do it. I would have appropriate thoughts, but the process of speaking them out loud got stifled. I was never sure why at the time. It just seemed like an oppressive weight was stilling my voice. According to Friedman (1980) Friedman, P. G. "Shyness and Reticence in Students." Washington, D.C.: National Education Association, 1980. Stock No. 1675-0-00. ED 181 520. , when the ability and desire to participate in discussion are present, but the process of verbalizing is inhibited, shyness or reticence is occurring.
Whatever it is called, no speaking up takes place. The degree of shyness, or range of situations that it affects, varies greatly from individual to individual. In retrospect, I would have to confess that I was pretty shy as a kid. But I have been fighting this all my life since in our culture, extraversion seems much the preferred norm and the one that gets much more rewarded.
These silent meetings were fairly large, maybe a couple of 100 students, staff and faculty. The chances of humiliating yourself were definitely present. I noted later on that with smaller groups, the inhibition or shyness was not as great. Thus I learned an early lesson around reluctance to express: it was worse in some settings…large groups of strangers, for instance, and not so bad with small gatherings of persons know to me….friends and acquaintances.
40 Years later when I went back for a high school reunion and we again had a silent meeting during the special day, I spoke right up and told my story. I reported that though I had never had the nerve to speak up during my student days, I now felt that this block, though frustrating and guilt inducing at the time, had led me to a life long, but successful struggle to overcome my disinclination to express my true self. The challenge had precipitated what turned out to be my life’s career of mastering my negative projections.
At least in this instance, the cause of the change seems to have been that, because I was older, I no longer was so concerned about the evaluations of others. And I have heard from others the same thought: getting older means becoming less reluctant to say what you think.

Define Reluctance