Despite the widespread interest in forgiveness across a diversity of disciplines, the study of forgiveness has been strongly influenced by a psychological (i.e. individual-level) approach. Although this has provided many fruitful insights, it has also resulted in a fragmented literature that has underemphasized the multilevel and contextual nature of this phenomenon. Drawing upon a broad multidisciplinary approach, we provide a singular definition of forgiveness and integrate research on forgiveness into a multilevel systems approach. In doing so, we demonstrate that a deeper understanding can be realized by conceptualizing forgiveness as a part of a system of interconnecting psychological, social, structural, and cultural relations. By embedding forgiveness into context, our systems perspective provides novel insights into the factors that facilitate and constrain forgiveness at multiple levels of analysis, how the interplay between contextual levels can shape forgiveness at lower levels (e.g. individual level), and how examining forgiveness in organizational contexts can highlight the importance of examining other outcomes (e.g. reconciliation, peaceful co-existence, and détente) as well as facilitate the development of actionable theory.

尽管跨学科对宽恕的兴趣广泛，但宽恕的研究受到心理学（即个人层面）方法的强烈影响。尽管这提供了许多卓有成效的见解，但也导致了零散的文学作品，而这些文学作品并未强调这种现象的多层次性和背景性。利用广泛的多学科方法，我们提供了宽恕的单一定义，并将宽恕的研究整合到了多层次的系统方法中。通过这样做，我们证明可以通过将宽恕概念化为系统的一部分来实现更深入的理解心理，社会，结构和文化关系的相互联系。通过将宽恕嵌入到上下文中，我们的系统视角提供了新颖的见解，可以在多个分析级别上对促进和限制宽恕的因素，上下文级别之间的相互作用如何在较低级别（例如，个人级别）塑造宽恕以及如何检查组织中的宽恕提供了新的见解。情境可以强调检查其他结果（例如和解，和平共处和缓和）的重要性，并促进可行理论的发展。