Conservation planning is the process of locating, configuring, implementing and maintaining areas that are managed to promote the persistence of biodiversity. In this review, we analyze the ways in which social processes have been integrated into Marxan, a spatially explicit reserve design planning tool. Drawing on 89 peer-reviewed articles published 2005-2020, we analyze the ways in which human activity, values, and processes are spatialized in the environment; something we call socialscape ecology. To quantify this, we used nine categories including three count categories (social costs, targets, and parameters) and six rank categories (reliance on proxies versus direct observation, integration of temporal change, inclusion of sea tenure, analysis across scale, provisioning analysis, and stakeholder participation). We show that remarkably little change occurred over time across eight of the nine categories. One exception to this was an increase in number of studies that integrated temporal variation in their analysis. Ultimately, we argue that greater attention to and integration of social processes and variables into Marxan will improve marine managers’ understanding of not only the ecological but also the social, cultural and political processes that influence the social and ecological success of marine conservation efforts.