MACS - Affective Conditioning System for Shared Working Environments

Open plan offices require people to share a common space, and violation of (implicitly or explicitly stated) social norms can cause instances of incivility. Left unaddressed, bad feeling can lead to diminished productivity and cooperation in a shared enterprise, and in the long-term might lead to more serious problems, such as conflict and aggression. We propose an anonymous online system for flagging violations of social norms can address potential incivilities/conflict in open-plan offices. This paper reports on progress on the development of such a system, which aims to integrate affective computing, event recognition, forgiveness, reputation and participatory adaptation of social norms, to restore the office to equilibrium after an episode of incivility.