I can only speak to some of the historiography, as I focus on a much earlier period, but there has been some important work on this field in the past ten or so years, specifically Bernard Porter's The Absent Minded Imperialists. My below response will be organized around his work, so if anyone with a stronger footing in the "new imperial" history comes along I will happily edit or remove.

For Porter, the war gave rise to a general ambivlence towards the empire. Those who were not directly involved in it became increasingly indifferent; government and political discourse found few from either side of the spectrum giving it serious, continued efforts or oppositions; those who were dedicated, pragmatic imperialists were happy to just carry-on without the weight that comes with broad interrogations; those (few) who were "zealots" continued their efforts to popularize the imperial project(s) through cultural/imperial propaganda (268, 271, 273).

Porter does note a shift in mentality and/or the representations and vehicles thereof, though. The Empire was increasingly talked about in a softer, or perhaps mealy-mouthed, manner. Militarism and despotism were pushed back in how the empire was represented in schoolbooks, for instance (275, 277). The concept of the "commonwealth" as a moral geo-political entity that was more palatable found greater articulation (278). Those who had vested interests in the continuation of the empire understood that the excesses, such as bombings in Iraq and the slaughter of native peoples, needed to be numbed, so efforts to popularize in a jingoistic way were far from unanimous from those who were directly invested in the imperial project (281).

In general, apathy was one of the most common sentiments, if you ask Porter. The Empire was marginal in the mind of the masses, and that apathy was instrumental in the Imperial decline that soon followed (282).

Now, Porter's work is hardly unquestioned. Other works that were well-received have taken very different approaches, see Catherine Hall's Civilising Subjects (on an earlier period, but still deeply concerned with the same questions). Further, his work, while award-winning, took some flak. James Epstein's AHR review straight-up said that Porter "misses the mark" because he operates under too-narrow a definition of what "imperial" culture and involvement is (V.112.2, 588).

A general conclusion being that we cannot exactly say, but it is reasonable to accept that there was often a disjoint between the propaganda of the zealots, the workings of "pragmatic" imperialists, th realities of empire at home and abroad, and the actual cultural uptake among the masses who had little to do with the empire's functioning outside of consumption of products and cultural signals that may or may not have been internalized.