The moral roles assigned to nations that took part in the Second World War cast a shadow over contemporary international politics. To understand contemporary moral beliefs about the war, we took 11 mostly student samples from 9 nations that took part in the European theatre of war (total N = 1,427). We asked respondents, in free and scaled listings, to identify the war’s heroes, villains, victims, and recipients of help. Nations and individuals seen as heroes, victims, and villains could be readily identified by most samples and showed both continuity and difference across nations. Most nations preferentially assigned themselves hero and victim roles, and the two were correlated positively, showing ingroup favouritism linked to victimhood. These findings show the importance of morality to contemporary views of the war and suggest further directions for studying today’s political climate in Europe and elsewhere.

中文翻译：

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在欧洲第二次世界大战中分配道德角色：国家的相似性、差异和对群体层面道德表征的影响

分配给参加第二次世界大战的国家的道德角色给当代国际政治蒙上了阴影。为了了解当代关于战争的道德信念，我们从参加欧洲战区的 9 个国家（共N = 1,427）。我们在免费和按比例排列的列表中要求受访者确定战争中的英雄、恶棍、受害者和受助者。大多数样本可以很容易地识别被视为英雄、受害者和恶棍的国家和个人，并显示出国家之间的连续性和差异。大多数国家优先为自己分配英雄和受害者角色，两者呈正相关，显示出与受害者相关的内群体偏爱。这些发现表明了道德对当代战争观的重要性，并为研究当今欧洲和其他地方的政治气候提出了进一步的方向。