{
  "id": "ick-factor.aversion",
  "term": "ick factor",
  "sense": "aversion",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 17,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A wall a collective self sets against a thing from a felt reading alone, which persists against any model that reads the thing as good.",
  "folk_gloss": "an instinctive feeling of disgust that makes people reject something",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "collective-self.shared",
      "set.fix",
      "model.representation",
      "wall.range-end",
      "against.opposition",
      "feel.sensory",
      "read.information",
      "alone.state",
      "persist.continue",
      "good.moral"
    ],
    "interaction": "The wall is set by feeling rather than by a model, so arguments about harm act on a different part of the self from the one holding the wall.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a wall no argument addresses",
      "a boundary set before any model"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "Water agencies proposing to purify wastewater for drinking have long cited the 'yuck factor' as a main obstacle to public acceptance.",
      "domain": "policy"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "fear.nearing-wall",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "fear reports a wall near the self; the ick factor sets a wall against a thing"
    },
    {
      "id": "unspoken-rule.silence",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "an unspoken rule is a hidden group wall on speech; the ick factor is a felt group wall on acceptance"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "ick factor",
    "yuck factor"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-ick-factor.aversion"
}