Social psychological theory posits entities and mechanisms that attempt to explain observable differences in behavior. For example, dual process theory suggests that an agent's behavior is influenced by intentional (arising from reasoning involving attitudes and perceived norms) and unintentional (i.e., habitual) processes. In order to pass the generative sufficiency test as an explanation of alcohol use, we argue that the theory should be able to explain notable patterns in alcohol use that exist in the population, e.g., the distinct differences in drinking prevalence and average quantities consumed by males and females. In this study, we further develop and apply inverse generative social science (iGSS) methods to an existing agent-based model of dual process theory of alcohol use. Using iGSS, implemented within a multi-objective grammar-based genetic program, we search through the space of model structures to identify whether a single parsimonious model can best explain both male and female drinking, or whether separate and more complex models are needed. Focusing on alcohol use trends in New York State, we identify an interpretable model structure that achieves high goodness-of-fit for both male and female drinking patterns simultaneously, and which also validates successfully against reserved trend data. This structure offers a novel interpretation of the role of norms in formulating drinking intentions, but the structure's theoretical validity is questioned by its suggestion that individuals with low autonomy would act against perceived descriptive norms. Improved evidence on the distribution of autonomy in the population is needed to understand whether this finding is substantive or is a modeling artefact.

中文翻译：

---

社会规范能否解释酒精使用的长期趋势？逆生成社会科学的见解。

社会心理学理论假设实体和机制试图解释可观察到的行为差异。例如，双重过程理论表明，代理人的行为受有意（源自涉及态度和感知规范的推理）和无意（即习惯）过程的影响。为了通过生成充分性测试来解释饮酒，我们认为该理论应该能够解释人群中存在的显着饮酒模式，例如饮酒流行率和男性平均饮酒量的明显差异和女性。在这项研究中，我们进一步开发逆生成社会科学 (iGSS) 方法并将其应用于现有的基于主体的酒精使用双重过程理论模型。使用 iGSS，在基于语法的多目标遗传程序中实施，我们通过模型结构空间进行搜索，以确定单个简约模型是否可以最好地解释男性和女性饮酒，或者是否需要单独且更复杂的模型。着眼于纽约州的酒精使用趋势，我们确定了一个可解释的模型结构，该结构同时实现了男性和女性饮酒模式的高拟合度，并且还成功地验证了保留的趋势数据。这种结构对规范在形成饮酒意图中的作用提供了一种新颖的解释，但该结构的理论有效性受到质疑，因为它暗示自主性低的个人会违反感知到的描述性规范行事。