RT Article T1 Distance from a Cultural Prototype and Psychological Distress in Urban Brazil: A Model JF Journal of cognition and culture VO 23 IS 1/2 SP 218 OP 240 A1 Dressler, William W. 1951- A1 Balieiro, Mauro C. A1 Santos, José Ernesto dos LA English PB Brill YR 2023 UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1841714291 AB The metaphor of culture as a space or environment of meaning is widely employed. Going beyond metaphor, we present a model of culture as a 3-dimensional Euclidean space, using data from Brazil on cultural models of life goals. The dimensions of this space are defined by degree of sharing of culture (cultural competence); alternate configurations of that shared meaning (residual agreement); and social practice (cultural consonance). A cultural distance metric calculated within those dimensions identifies an individuals’ proximity to prototypical goals; greater distance from these goals is associated with higher psychological distress. Cultural distance is in turn influenced by one’s sense of personal agency. Finally, in a set of open-ended interviews, the more individuals employ spatial metaphors in talking about culturally defined life goals, the higher their sense of personal agency and cultural consonance. This model moves the discussion of culture as a space of meaning from metaphor to measurement. K1 Brazil K1 residual agreement K1 cultural consonance K1 Cultural competence K1 spatial metaphors K1 cultural distance DO 10.1163/15685373-12340160