Thomas Druyen

Thomas Druyen (2016)

Thomas Druyen (born July 2, 1957 in Süchteln , today Viersen ) is a German sociologist . He is the director of the institute at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna and researches the psychological and neural conditions as well as side effects of shaping the future, digitization and demographic change . He also deals with the psychology and life of the wealthy.

Life

Druyen studied at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster the subjects of law , sociology , journalism and philology and anthropology at the University of Colombo. He concluded his university studies in Muenster in 1988 with degrees in Master of Arts , 1990 Promotion to Dr. phil. and his habilitation in 2004. In the same year he was appointed honorary professor at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Győr . From 1999 to 2004 he was director of the Institute for Dialogue between Generations. From 2004 Druyen taught at the Institute for Sociology at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster, where he was director of the “Forum for Wealth Research” from 2006 to 2010. He also worked at the Institute for Culture and Media Management at the Free University of Berlin from 2005 to 2007 .

From 2000 to 2004 Druyen was director of the Swiss Peter Ustinov Foundation . From 2001 to 2014 Druyen was President of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation “Dialogue of Generations” in Düsseldorf, which he founded in 1999 and has since been dissolved. From 2003 to 2007 he worked at LGT Privatbank in Liechtenstein and was editor-in-chief of the customer magazine Credo . In addition, from 2004 to 2009 he was chairman of the board of trustees of the Steinfeld Monastery Foundation . Since 2007, Druyen has been a full professor of the chair for comparative wealth culture and wealth psychology and since 2009 director of the institute of the same name and of the institute for future psychology and future management, both at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna .

From 1996 to 2013 Druyen was married to the actress Jenny Juergens . In 2016 he married again. Druyen lives in Düsseldorf .

Scientific research field

Demographic change

Druyen contrasts the generally negative image of old age with a positive image of old age. It is important to discover the newfound potential of old age and to use the resulting opportunities for the general public. It calls for a corresponding social reassessment of age and reveals, among other things, to what extent the subjective self-perception of many older people fundamentally opposes social fears of aging. His book '' Olymp des Lebens - Das neue Bild des Alters '', published in 2003, found its way into numerous public debates and at the same time prepared the basis for his further field of research on wealth culture, in which basic elements from demographic research were further developed and thus achieved a societal dimension.

Wealth research, wealth culture and wealth psychology

In his wealth-cultural and psychological studies, Druyen examines, among other things, the influence of private financial wealth on society and the effects of large material assets on the human psyche. For this purpose, Druyen conducted interviews with the rich and the super-rich worldwide (starting with about 30 million US dollars in net financial assets to several billion US dollars in freely disposable capital assets) and published numerous books and studies on them. In his highly acclaimed book "Goldkinder - Die Welt des Vermögens", published in 2007, Druyen distinguishes between wealth on the one hand and wealth on the other and coined the term wealth culture. While the concept of wealth encompasses all those quantitative variables that can be measured in any form, the concept of wealth also includes its qualitative use and its individual requirements. Druyen understands asset culture to be the promotion and maintenance of material and immaterial values ​​to protect individual and social sustainability. His wealth research therefore focuses on those people who, in addition to self-selected parts of their wealth, also use their skills, know-how and sense of responsibility to help shape social development. In addition to the social requirements and consequences of a wealth culture understood in this way, Druyen also examines the psychological interactions between extraordinary material wealth and the resulting mental attitude and lifestyle. Among other things, he found that the wealthy are not necessarily happier, but are usually one step closer to the future than the average citizen.

See also: Wealth Research

Competence and willingness to change

With his research on individual change skills and willingness to change, Druyen builds on his research on demographic change, but here takes a more socio - psychological perspective. In this sense, he understands demographic change as a prime example of the fact that, despite better knowledge, the majority of people are suppressing impending changes instead of dealing with them and actively shaping them. Druyen uncovered this “preventive incompetence” in his generation study published in 2015, for which people from three different generations were asked about their respective visions for the future. At the same time, in his opinion, it runs through the entire history of mankind. The results of the study laid the foundation for the research field of future psychology.

Future Psychology

Future psychology focuses its attention primarily on the areas of anticipation and prospecting in the context of an age characterized by accelerated change, digitization and virtuality. Ideas and fantasies of the future are collected in partly interactive surveys, in which robots and avatars are also used. In a conventional survey that was representative of the population in 2018, Druyen was able to show that Germans are, on the one hand, extremely resilient and adaptable, but on the other hand they act with little optimism and foresight. The aim of future psychological research is to understand the effects of ideas about the future and the new technologies on thinking and acting and to derive action-guiding strategies from this in the sense of optimizing change.

Awards

• 2018: Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

Publications

• Twilight. ISBN 3-88611-033-8
• The perception of plurality. ISBN 3-927949-99-X
• The future of old age. ISBN 978-3-902626-26-4
• Olymp of life - the new image of old age. ISBN 3-472-05671-1
• Goldkinder - The world of wealth. ISBN 978-3-938017-85-2
• Wealth and wealth - On the social significance of wealth and wealth research. ISBN 978-3-531-15928-7
• Wealth in Germany - heterogeneity and responsibility. ISBN 978-3-531-17689-5
• Wealth culture - responsibility in the 21st century. ISBN 978-3-531-17375-7
• Happy Princes - The Empowerment of Wealthibility. ISBN 978-3-902626-28-8
• War of hypocrisy. A plea for common sense. ISBN 978-3-9814141-4-1
• Responsibility and Probation: A Wealth Study. ISBN 978-3-531-19704-3
• Talking to three generations - a study on intergenerational future management. ISBN 978-3-658-10408-5
• The ultimate challenge. About the ability of Germans to change. ISBN 978-3-658-19762-9

Web links

• Literature by and about Thomas Druyen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage of Thomas Druyen
• Druyen on the homepage of the Institute for Comparative Wealth Culture and Wealth Psychology at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna
• Druyen on the homepage of the Institute for Future Psychology and Future Management at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education: The Great Age Turnaround | bpb. Retrieved October 22, 2018 . 
2. ↑ - Thomas Druyens: Olymp of life . In: Deutschlandfunk . ( deutschlandfunk.de [accessed on October 22, 2018]).
3. ↑ Rich does not mean wealthy . ( marktundmittelstand.de [accessed on October 22, 2018]).
4. ↑ Jens Becker: Book of the Month: How do the rich tick? Sheets for German and International Politics, May 2010, accessed on October 22, 2018 . 
5. ↑ The world of the rich: "Be on the safe side from 300 million euros" - manager magazin . In: manager magazin . ( manager-magazin.de [accessed on October 22, 2018]).
6. ↑ What moves ... Thomas Druyen ?: The surveyor of wealth . In: ZEIT ONLINE . ( zeit.de [accessed on October 22, 2018]).
7. ↑ The great unknowns - brand eins online. Retrieved October 22, 2018 . 
8. ↑ Sebastian Siegloch: Thomas Druyen breaks a lance for the well-heeled: Reich is not wealthy . In: THE WORLD . June 9, 2007 ( welt.de [accessed October 22, 2018]).
9. ↑ FOCUS Online: "The worries are shifting" . In: FOCUS Online . ( focus.de [accessed on October 22, 2018]).
10. ↑ Rich is not wealthy. About the realization of the good. Sociology Today, October 2010, accessed October 22, 2018 . 
11. ↑ SFU wealth culture. Retrieved October 22, 2018 . 
12. ^ Portal for political science - wealth culture. Retrieved October 22, 2018 (German). 
13. ↑ Swiss millionaires value the military . In: az Aargauer Zeitung . ( aargauerzeitung.ch [accessed on October 22, 2018]).
14. ↑ Reichenforscher: "Money does not necessarily make you happy" . In: The press . ( diepresse.com [accessed October 22, 2018]).
15. ↑ Asset researcher Druyen: "The super-rich are closer to the future" . ( rnz.de [accessed on October 22, 2018]).
16. ↑ Sven Prange, editor-in-chief ada: Interview with Thomas Druyen: About the psychology of the wealthy. Retrieved October 22, 2018 . 
17. ↑ Demographic change in Germany: change instead of displacement . In: Spiegel Online . January 21, 2016 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 22, 2018]).
18. ↑ The psychological burden will increase. Rheinische Post, October 31, 2015, accessed on October 22, 2018 . 
19. ↑ IZZ IZZ: A conversation between Pepper and Prof. Dr. Thomas Druyen. September 19, 2017. Retrieved October 22, 2018 . 
20. ↑ IZZ IZZ: Prof. Druyen's avatar explains future navigation. August 18, 2017, accessed October 22, 2018 . 
21. ↑ IZZ IZZ: The Avatar of Prof. Druyen introduces the new Virtual Future Institute. October 2, 2018, accessed October 22, 2018 . 
22. ^ Sociology: "The Germans are reaction champions" . In: ZEIT ONLINE . ( zeit.de [accessed on October 22, 2018]).
23. ↑ Analysis of change study - How Germans fight with their weaker self . In: bild.de . ( bild.de [accessed on October 22, 2018]).
24. ↑ IZZ IZZ: Book presentation & discussion. April 25, 2018. Retrieved October 22, 2018 .