Abstract

Human history has been the process of expanding human control over environment. The critical factor from psychological viewpoint is the emergence of the selfhood owing to the capacity for self-consciousness and language. The Western self, armed with the political philosophies of individualism and liberalism, redefined the nature of humanity and provided incessant source of power to energize its quest of expanding control over environment in undeterred manner. The development of technology has got rid of most restraints which defined the humanity and posed a pivotal moment to proceed beyond the humanity. Facing the 4th industrial revolution, humanity experiences the age of selfhood being overly inflated. Two symptoms are noted as exposing such symptoms: the obsession with happiness and the increase of narcissism across nations. To understand this inflated self and the proposals to deflate it, we review briefly two approaches-- self actualization and self transcendence-- and relate them to mature personality. We review some alternative conceptions arising to quiet the self such as self-expansion, selflessness, and the interactive self. We propose a new perspective of the interactive selfhood(Chok self), couched in the Korean worldview, is a promising alternative to cure the overly inflated self.