Participants in research led by Ella Miron-Spektor, a lecturer in organizational psychology at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, were told they would be playing the role of a customer-service worker, then asked to listen to recordings of angry, abusive remarks by a customer to another customer-service worker.

WSJ: Anger's Effects on Those Who Witness It

Customers could scroll through the options and select what they want, rather than have a customer-service worker jot down their order on a piece of paper and pass that along to another employee who fills it.

WSJ: As Wages Rise, Firms Consider Replacing Workers With Devices

People who work at home (the authors quote a wince-making diary of a home-office worker's efforts to set up an account with a new Internet service provider) lack such support, which is why conventional offices, in some form or other, are here to stay.

ECONOMIST: Predictions about technology