Today we’re talking to Nick Brown, who after more than 30 years of working in IT and management in various countries, completed his masters in applied positive psychology at the University of East London, and is currently working on a PhD in health psychology in the Netherlands and is a part-time personal coach.
In this episode, we explore why popular evidence-based findings including the Happiness Pie equation and the Positivity Ratio are being disproven and how we can improve our ability to understand what wellbeing research findings are really telling us.
Connect with Nick Brown:Â
Nick’s Google Scholar profile

You’ll Learn:
- [02:08] – Nick explains why the often cited Happiness Pie equation may be flawed when it comes to helping people to improve their wellbeing.
- [03:27] – Nick shares his recommendations on what we need to more confidently understand and share a formula for happiness.
- [05:10] – Having helped to disprove the positivity ratio, Nick shares his thoughts on how cultivating heartfelt positivity does and doesn’t improve our wellbeing.
- [08:26] – Nick provides some simple tips to help improve our ability and confidence to understand what evidence-based research approaches are and aren’t finding.
- [21:42] – Nick completes the Lightning round.
Your Resources:
- Read this interactive article on effect sizes
- MPPW Podcast on Facebook
Thanks for listening!
Thanks so much for joining me again this week. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post.
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Until next time, take care! Thank you Nick!


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