For decades, shark research has understandably focused on the animals themselves. How many are left? Where do they move? What do they eat? How quickly do they reproduce? These questions remain fundamental to shark conservation, don’t get me wrong! But there is another question that is just as important for conservation: What do humans think about sharks?

A new systematic scoping review offers one of the clearest pictures yet of the answer, with researchers examining 7,969 records and the peer-reviewed research alone represented 84,429 participants across 32 countries. Most of this work was published after 2000, with a particularly noticeable increase after 2010 as psychological and social science approaches became more common in shark research. The researchers were interested in what are known as the “human dimensions of conservation,” or the many ways people interact with wildlife psychologically and socially, including perceptions, attitudes, emotions, knowledge, beliefs, experiences and behaviours. Rather than asking only whether someone "likes" sharks, human dimensions research tries to understand the complicated ingredients behind our decisions and actions.

The most commonly studied dimension was perception (55% of the studies examined how people perceived sharks), followed by behaviours (appearing in 44.4% of studies), experiences at 42.1% and attitudes at 40%. Emotions were also important, appearing in nearly a third of studies, while 19.9% specifically measured fear. Knowledge appeared in 30% of studies. At first glance, this might sound reassuring as it seems like researchers are clearly paying attention to how people see sharks. But there is a catch — we are not always measuring the same thing in the same way. More than a quarter of the studies used the terms "attitudes" and "perceptions" interchangeably, even though they represent different psychological constructs. Most researchers also developed their own measures rather than using established or standardised tools, making it difficult to compare results between studies. For example, if one researcher defines a "positive attitude" differently from another, what exactly does it mean when we say people have become more positive toward sharks? The team also found another fascinating blind spot. Although hammerheads ( Sphyrna spp.) and white sharks ( Carcharodon carcharias ) were among the most frequently studied species, 56.7% of the peer-reviewed research referred simply to "shark" or “sharks,” without specifying a particular species. So when someone is asked how they feel about "sharks", which animal do they imagine? A massive white shark, a small reef shark? Or a cartoon shark with enormous teeth? Our mental image of a shark may be doing more work than we realise.

The research also shows that people’s relationships with sharks vary considerably depending on who they are. Tourists, for example, generally demonstrated positive attitudes toward sharks and shark tourism could encourage conservation-minded behaviours and willingness to pay for conservation. But it was found that some tourism studies encountered a ceiling effect because participants were already environmentally conscious. Fishers, on the other hand, presented a different perspective, with many recognizing sharks’ ecological importance, even though some felt increasingly frustrated by conservation measures and believed shark depredation was increasing. Perhaps most importantly, some reported feeling underrepresented by scientists, conservationists and management agencies. The review found that strengthening relationships between fishers and scientists should be a major priority for future research. Then there is the general public, where fear remains an important part of the picture. While that does not necessarily mean people want sharks killed (in fact, across ocean-user populations, people often preferred non-lethal management approaches), awareness of whether particular management methods are actually lethal was sometimes surprisingly low.

One of the most consistent findings across the review was that knowledge matters. Greater knowledge about sharks was generally associated with more positive attitudes and perceptions. Educational interventions could also improve children’s understanding of sharks, while education incorporated into tourism experiences appeared capable of strengthening conservation-minded attitudes and behaviours. But "educate the public" cannot be the entire solution; effective conservation is rarely as simple as giving people more facts and expecting their behaviour to change. People bring their experiences, cultural beliefs, social identities, economic interests and emotions with them, afterall! A fisher whose livelihood is affected by shark management is navigating a very different reality from a tourist who has just seen a shark while cage diving. That is why the review's call for social scientists to be involved from the beginning of shark conservation research is so important. Researchers need robust ways to distinguish perceptions from attitudes, beliefs from opinions and what people say they will do from what they actually do. Otherwise, we risk building conservation strategies on measurements that sound scientific but do not capture the complexity of human behaviour.

Shark conservation is not simply a biological problem with a human obstacle standing in the way. Humans are part of the system. We decide which sharks are protected, which fisheries are permitted, whether a shark bite becomes a conservation conversation or a political crisis. We decide how shark encounters are reported, which management tools are deployed and how much money is invested in research. We also decide whether the next generation grows up seeing sharks as monsters, resources, neighbours or essential parts of functioning oceans. So perhaps the question we should be asking is not simply, “How do we save sharks?” Maybe we should also add, “What would have to change in us for sharks to have a better chance of surviving?”