System Prefs>Apple ID>Password & Security = spinning ball, never opens. How to fix?

Big Sur 11.1 on a 2015 MacBook.

If I click on System Preferences, then Apple ID, then "Overview," I see that I am signed in, and I see the name of the Apple ID account and its email address. But if I then try to click on any other tab in the Apple ID pane -- such as "Name, Phone, Email," "Password & Security," or "Payment & Shipping," all that happens is a little circular "thinking" icon spins in the gray field on the right side of the System Preferences window, and those options never open or activate, and nothing I do can make them appear. Just a spinning ball/circle (not the spinning multicolored beachball, but the smaller "short-black-lines-rotating-in-a-circle-around-the-center" icon which indicates "thinking" or "process in action"), and that's all I ever see -- none of the tabs ever actually appear or open. If I click back on "Overview" I can see that, but nothing else.

The computer works perfectly fine in every other way, What could be going wrong, and what could I do to fix it? Thanks.