Stress monitoring in conflict resolution situations

Abstract

Online Dispute Resolution is steadily growing to become the major alternative to litigation in court. In fact, given the characteristics of current disputes, technology-based conflict resolution may be a quite efficient approach. However, in this shift of paradigm, there are also threats that should be considered. Specifically, in this paper we deal with the problem of the lack of important context information when parties communicate in a virtual setting. In that sense, we propose the addition of a monitoring framework capable of measuring the level of stress of the parties in a non-invasive way. This information will be used by the platform and the mediator throughout the complete conflict resolution process to adapt strategies in real-time, resulting in a context-aware and more efficient approach. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.