The Integrity Layer Lab

Sandbox · Values Spectrum Wheel

Values move. Trace them.

We’ve built systems that optimize for what we can measure: profit, growth, efficiency, performance. Values are different. Trust, honesty, agency and belonging are often treated as abstract: important, but difficult to observe and even harder to quantify.

What if they aren’t?

Values aren’t just words. They’re dynamic forces expressed through observable behaviour.The Values Spectrum Wheel translates those expressions into a shared vocabulary that can be compared and computationally represented.

Start here Skip to the wheel →
Orientation

What are you looking at?

This is a map of how values can show up in behaviour.

Each value is represented as a spectrum of observable behavioural expressions: from one extreme, through a balanced state, to the opposite extreme. Explore the wheel to see that translation up close, one value at a time.

It is not

A personality test, a “pick your top five” exercise, or a score of you as a person. Nothing here judges anyone.

It is

A shared vocabulary for behaviour. Each value becomes a line of named, observable states that people can point to and agree on.

The model builds on the Weighted Systems Values Architecture (WSVA), which treats values as dynamic behaviours organized into clusters rather than fixed traits or ideals (Chow, 2025; Chow, 2026).

How to read the wheel

  1. Five values per cluster. Values that tend to travel together are grouped into seven clusters, such as Foundation or Voice.
  2. Each value is a line through the centre. The value sits on the upper half. Its opposite, the counter-value, sits directly across on the lower half.
  3. The centre is balance. Moving outward in either direction, the behaviour becomes stronger, until it reaches the extreme at the rim.
  4. Every point has a name. Each of the 11 positions on a line is a Behavioural Value Expression (BVE): a specific behaviour, such as Wariness, Reassurance or Safety.
The table

35 axes. One system

Every axis in the registry, arranged by cluster. Each element's symbol is the same one used in its BVE IDs, so a code like FD-SC-09 reads as Foundation, Security ↔ Threat, position 9. Select an element to open it on the wheel.

Live in the TILOS MVC Top band runs from the counter-value (−1.0) to the value (+1.0) hex 01–35 element number, in registry order
Explore

Choose a value. Move along its spectrum. See how that value changes when expressed through behaviour.

Cluster
Direction
Scenario

Trace

Trace

About this model

A registry you can hold in your hands

Where this leads

If values can be represented through observable behaviour, we can begin evaluating whether behaviour actually aligns with stated values.

That is the work of TILOS, The Integrity Layer’s open-source values optimization engine for governance. It evaluates what an organization says it values (its Declared State) against what its behaviour shows over time (its Operational State), computes the distance between them as the Integrity Delta, and informs responses that bring the two closer together. The values on this page are the vocabulary TILOS works in.

The wheel draws on the Master Registry of the TILOS Values Registry, the business-register edition of the Chakra Spectrum Registry. Positions and hex codes are identical across both. IDs follow the pattern cluster symbol, axis symbol, position 1 to 11.

Scenario positions are illustrative examples, not measured data. Going backward, an axis with no observed BVEs shows as “no evidence”, which is different from neutral. When observed BVEs on one axis disagree, the wheel shows their mean and flags the axis as mixed.

7 clusters35 axes385 BVEs11-point signed scale
Read about TILOS → Cite this work → Back to the sandbox →
References

Cite and reuse this work

The Values Spectrum Wheel and its registry data are openly licensed for non-commercial use. You’re welcome to reference, share and build on them for research, teaching and other non-commercial work, with attribution.

Suggested citation

Chow, V. (2026). Values Spectrum Wheel [Interactive model]. The Integrity Layer. https://theintegritylayer.com/sandbox/values-wheel.html

Works cited

  1. Chow, V. (2025). The architecture of human values: WSVA Part I, the architecture (Accessible ed., Version 1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17904818
  2. Chow, V. (2026). Weighted Systems Values Architecture (WSVA) II: Value dynamics under pressure. How misalignment emerges, accumulates, and hardens into failure over time (Accessible ed., Version 1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18203895

Related

  1. Chow, V. (2026). Values Architecture Governance System (VAGS): Values coherence and the durability of AI alignment under real-world conditions (Accessible ed., Version 1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18476719
CC BY-NC 4.0

© 2026 Vanessa Chow. This model, its text and its registry data are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this work for non-commercial purposes, provided you give appropriate credit, link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made. For commercial use, please get in touch.