What PERMA measures

PERMA is a model of wellbeing covering five domains — Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment — measured by the PERMA-Profiler (Butler & Kern, 2016) and reported separately rather than as one composite score.

PERMA is a model of wellbeing developed by psychologist Martin Seligman, one of the founders of the positive psychology field. Rather than reducing wellbeing to a single number, PERMA describes it as five distinct domains worth tracking on their own — which means it’s entirely possible to feel strong in some areas and have more room to grow in others, all at the same time.

The five domains

The PERMA-Profiler (Butler & Kern, 2016) is the 23-item questionnaire researchers built to measure these five domains, plus a few supplementary items covering negative emotion, health, loneliness, and overall happiness. Each domain is scored separately rather than collapsed into one composite “happiness score” — the instrument’s authors designed it this way deliberately, on the idea that wellbeing is genuinely multidimensional and a fuller profile is more useful than a single figure.

• Positive Emotion — how often you experience feelings like joy, contentment, and positivity.
• Engagement— how absorbed or interested you feel in what you’re doing, including moments of losing track of time.
• Relationships — feeling supported, loved, and satisfied with the people around you.
• Meaning — the sense that your life and daily activities are purposeful and worthwhile.
• Accomplishment — a sense of progress toward goals and the ability to handle your responsibilities.

Together, these five letters give PERMA its name. None of them is treated as more important than the others — the point of the model is to see the shape of your wellbeing across all five, rather than ranking them against each other.

How Saati uses it

Saati’s full assessment includes the PERMA-Profiler, used with attribution to its original authors. We reproduce its official item wording and its authors’ published scoring method exactly as they wrote them — nothing is rewritten, shortened, or simplified. In your report, each of the five domains is labelled Validated Measure, and by default they’re reported separately rather than folded into one overall number, consistent with how the instrument’s authors designed it to be interpreted.

Alongside PERMA, Saati’s full assessment also includes a small set of Saati Insights — our own proprietary questions on subjects like sleep, study habits, focus, and stress (see our Sleep Insight explainer as one example). These are informed by general research but are not validated instruments, and Saati is careful never to present them as one. Your report always keeps validated measures and Saati Insights clearly and separately labelled.

A few questions worth asking yourself

You don’t need a formal assessment to start noticing where you stand across these five areas. It can help to ask:

• Which of these five domains feels like a genuine strength for me right now?
• Which one do I think about the least, even though it might matter to how I’m doing overall?
• Is there one small change — in relationships, meaning, or engagement — I’d be willing to try this month?

These are reflection prompts, not a scored test — Saati’s full assessment is where all five PERMA domains, alongside WHO-5 wellbeing and a few other areas, come together into one honest picture.