Lest We Forget: The Effect of War Commemorations on Regret, Positive Moral Emotions, and Support for War

Abstract

Why do societies commemorate war? The persistence of war commemorations suggests they serve a purpose in society. We examine one possibility: Commemorating past sacrifices may serve an “inspirational” function, by evoking pride and gratitude for soldiers’ actions and promoting a willingness to endure future sacrifices for the group. We contrast this with the (popularly espoused) “preventative” function, whereby commemorations decrease support for war by evoking regret. Drawing on one correlational study ( N = 500) and two experimental studies ( N = 600, 621) with U.S. residents, we show that although war commemorations inconsistently induce regret for the country’s actions, they consistently elicit emotions such as pride and admiration in response to the costly sacrifice of soldiers. While war commemorations neither increased nor decreased support for war directly, the inspirational account received greater support overall. We discuss implications of these findings in light of the ubiquity of war commemorations.

War Commemorations 5 Nations Pre-print 2020

“…Our studies directly build on and are largely consistent with some previous research on the effect of (collective) memories of war on militarism and diplomacy: In all samples except France we found that participants expressed more positive moral emotions (e.g., pride, gratitude) on commemorative days than at baseline, consistent with Watkins and Bastian (2019; see also Jonas et al, 2008Jonas et al, , 2013. However, our findings are inconsistent with other research on collective memories -reviewed in the introduction -which suggests that commemorations might increase militarism and intergroup conflict (e.g., Chatard et al, 2011;Li et al, 2016).…”

“…Results of these analyses are presented in Table 2, along with descriptive statistics. Participants reported greater positive moral emotions on Veterans Day than at baseline, consistent with Watkins and Bastian (2019). Consistent with this finding, we also found that negative emotions were lower on Veterans Day compared to baseline.…”

“…In this longitudinal study American residents first completed the survey two weeks before Veterans Day 2018, and again on Veterans Day. As the design of the present study was similar to Watkins and Bastian (2019), in line with their findings we expected that on Veterans Day people would feel more positive moral emotions (e.g., awe, gratitude). We also planned to test effects of Veterans Day on support for military and diplomatic solutions to conflict.…”

“…Note. a Positive and negative moral emotions were additional main outcome measures in all studies, as another aim of these studies was to replicate the effect of war commemoration on positive moral emotions demonstrated by Watkins & Bastian (2019).…”

“…Similarly, when Ivory Coast students were reminded of a recent conflict, their support for their country's military increased (Chatard et al 2011). Finally, after watching commemorative videos, participants in the U.S. reported more positive moral emotions (e.g., pride, gratitude) when considering their country's loss of life in war; emotions which in turn were positively related to support for war in general (Watkins & Bastian, 2019). In line with these previous findings, we also examine whether war commemorations -with their emphasis on past conflict -increase support for future conflict.…”