Understanding shark-related cognitive vulnerability and its role in shark diving: implications for conservation

ABSTRACT

Negative perceptions and vulnerable feelings about sharks have been one of the greatest barriers to effective shark conservation efforts. This study used a self-report survey of young adults in a coastal state (N = 616) to examine how shark-related risk perceptions (severity and susceptibility) and sensation-seeking tendency influence cognitive vulnerability to sharks and its affective, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes. Results of a path analysis showed that perceived susceptibility was positively associated with cognitive vulnerability to sharks, which in turn was negatively related to behavioral intention to shark dive. Perceived severity was associated with higher levels of fear, less favorable attitudes toward shark diving, and had a negative indirect effect on behavioral intention through attitude. Sensation-seeking had both a direct and an indirect effect through attitude on behavioral intention to shark diving. Theoretical and practical implications of findings in human-wildlife interactions are described.

KEYWORDS:

• Cognitive vulnerability
• risk perceptions
• sensation-seeking
• shark conservation

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10871209.2022.2101720

Notes

1. To induce different levels of risk perception, six websites were created with varying depictions of severity and susceptibility of the risks associated with shark diving. Specific sections of texts with callout boxes indicated that cage diving with sharks was an activity associated with low or high severity of risks, and that participants were at a low, moderate, or high susceptibility to the risks. Except for the information about severity and susceptibility, all other website features including format, layout, color, background, photos, and the majority of texts were held constant across conditions. The websites resembled other cage diving websites as described by Gore et al. (2011). These websites were effective at manipulating perceptions of the risks associated with cage diving in prior research (Lapinski et al., 2020). An example message is available in the Supplementary Appendix A. Random assignment resulted in approximately equal number of participants in each condition.

2. Two-way ANOVAs were conducted to examine whether different levels of perceived severity and perceived susceptibility were influenced by the messages. Results showed that message depiction of severity [F (1, 605) = 0.10, p = .75, n.s.] had no significant main effect on predicted severity. However, message depiction of susceptibility significantly predicted perceived severity, F (2, 605) = 17.72, p< .05. Post hoc comparisons suggested severity perception for the three levels of message depicted susceptibility differ from each other [low (M = 4.05, SD = 1.61), moderate (M = 4.50, SD = 1.64), high (M = 4.99, SD = 1.48)]. Additionally, there was no significant interaction effect of message depiction of severity by susceptibility [F (2, 605) = 0.21, p = .81, n.s.] on perceived severity. In terms of the results for perceived susceptibility, message depiction of susceptibility had a significant main effect, F (2, 603) = 32.84, p< .05. Post hoc comparisons suggested that susceptibility perception for the three levels of message depicted susceptibility differ from each other [low (M = 3.85, SD = 1.55), moderate (M = 4.59, SD = 1.41), high (M = 4.97, SD = 1.30)]. There was no significant main effect of message depiction of severity [F (1, 603) = 2.41, p = .12, n.s.] or the interaction effect of message depiction of severity and susceptibility [F (2, 603) = 1.07, p = .34, n.s.] on perceived susceptibility.

Additional information

Funding

Partial support was provided by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch project #1018574 and by the U.S. National Science Foundation [# SMA-1328503 to Lapinski; 328503];