In the context of escalating armed conflicts, geopolitical instability, and widespread exposure to war-related violence, understanding the psychological foundations of public support for war has become increasingly urgent. The current study examines how individual differences in moral values relate to support for different forms of warfare, distinguishing between Just War Support and Dirty War Support. Drawing on Moral Foundations Theory, we adopt a multidimensional approach to war attitudes, assessing how individualizing and binding moral foundations differentially predict morally constrained versus norm-violating views of warfare.
A total of 634 participants completed measures of moral foundations (Moral Foundations Questionnaire; MFQ), moral disengagement, Just War and Dirty War support, and war-related stress. The results revealed distinct associations between moral foundations and support for war. Binding moral foundations were weakly but positively associated with Just War support. In contrast, individualizing moral foundations were negatively associated with Dirty War support, and this relationship was fully mediated by moral disengagement. War-related stress further qualified these relationships by moderating the association between moral foundations and moral disengagement.
Overall, the study demonstrates that support for war cannot be fully understood without distinguishing between morally restrained and morally unrestricted forms of warfare, as different moral foundations and psychological mechanisms underlie these evaluations.