The PERMA Model: An Essential Positive Psychology Guide to Young Adult Flourishing

By Jack Vaughan

Martin Seligman and the Birth of Positive Psychology

Before diving into the PERMA model, it's worth understanding the journey of its creator. Martin Seligman began his career researching “learned helplessness”—the condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness after experiencing repeated painful situations. This early work might seem at odds with his later focus on wellbeing, but it provided critical insights into human resilience and adaptation.

The turning point in Seligman's career came in 1998 when, as president of the American Psychological Association, he recognized that psychology had become primarily focused on healing mental illness rather than nurturing mental wellness. This realization sparked the positive psychology movement, shifting attention toward what makes life worth living rather than just what makes it challenging.

An interesting insight into Seligman's approach is that it stemmed partly from his observations as a parent. In his book "Authentic Happiness," he describes how watching his daughter Nikki's determined approach to gardening helped him recognize the importance of cultivating strengths rather than just fixing weaknesses—a principle that would become central to positive psychology.

The Current Landscape of Young Adult Mental Health

Today, young adults are experiencing unprecedented rates of anxiety, depression, and existential uncertainty. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 30 percent of young adults reported symptoms of anxiety disorder in 2023—triple the rate from just a decade ago.

The pandemic accelerated these trends, but it did not create them. Today's young adults are coming of age in an era of economic uncertainty, climate anxiety, political polarization, and technological disruption. They have inherited a world that offers both endless possibilities and paralyzing choices. Traditional markers of adulthood—homeownership, financial independence, career stability—have become increasingly elusive, stretching the transition to adulthood into what psychologist Jeffrey Arnett calls "emerging adulthood," a developmental limbo that can extend well into one's thirties.

It is common for parents watching their adult children struggle to also find themselves adrift in unfamiliar waters, unsure of what to do or how to help. The rulebook that guided previous generations through this transition seems woefully outdated. How much support is too much? When does guidance become interference? How can parents help without hampering the development of independence?

It is precisely here, in this ambiguous terrain, that Seligman's PERMA model offers not just academic insight but practical wisdom. The model isn't merely a theoretical framework—it's a navigational tool for cultivating well being across five dimensions: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. And while Seligman didn't develop it specifically for young adults, its elements address with remarkable precision the very challenges that define this developmental period.

The Anxious Generation and the Promise of Positive Emotions

Behind the carefully curated social media feeds and professional accomplishments lies a generation experiencing unprecedented rates of psychological distress—young adults who lie awake at night crushed by imposter syndrome, comparing their beginnings to others' middles through the distorting lens of social media, and wondering if they've made catastrophic choices. According to the American Psychological Association's 2023 Stress in America survey, young adults aged 18-25 report the highest levels of stress, anxiety, and depression of any age group.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has described this as "the anxious generation" in his research—young adults whose emotional baseline has shifted toward chronic worry, self-criticism, and anticipatory dread. This emotional landscape stands in stark contrast to the "P" in Seligman's model: Positive emotions.

Research from Barbara Fredrickson, a leading researcher on positive emotions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, demonstrates what she calls the "broaden-and-build" theory—the idea that positive emotions expand our awareness and build psychological resources over time. Her studies show that cultivating positive emotions isn't simply about feeling good; it's about developing resilience against precisely the challenges this generation faces.

A longitudinal study by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky at the University of California, Riverside, found that young adults who engaged in gratitude practices reported significantly higher levels of wellbeing and lower symptoms of anxiety than control groups. Yet according to data from Jean Twenge's extensive research tracking mood states across generations, today's young adults report fewer daily positive emotions than the same age group did in previous decades.

This is where parents, coaches and clinicians enter the equation, not as problem-solvers but as architects of emotional possibility. The helper who responds to a young adult's anxiety not with solutions ("Have you tried updating your LinkedIn?") but with perspective-broadening questions ("What moments in your work day feel most energizing?") is laying the groundwork for positive emotions to take root.

Emotional regulation researcher Susan David, author of "Emotional Agility," emphasizes that parents tend to influence their adult children not through control or even advice, but through modeling emotional agility—the capacity to experience the full range of emotions without being dominated by any of them. Her research demonstrates that emotional agility is a stronger predictor of life success than IQ or academic achievement.

Here are some simple practices for fostering positive emotions: celebrating small victories, establishing rituals of gratitude, creating space for play and pleasure without productivity attached—strategies that positive psychology researchers like Robert Emmons have demonstrated can significantly increase subjective well-being even during challenging life transitions.

Digital Distraction and the Lost Art of Engagement

Engagement—the "E" in PERMA—represents another dimension of well-being that proves particularly important for today's young adults. Engagement essentially refers to the state of flow, described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi as complete absorption in an optimally challenging activity—a state where time warps, self-consciousness dissolves, and attention becomes effortlessly focused.

The obstacles to engagement for young adults today are structural and ubiquitous. The average smartphone user checks their device 96 times daily—approximately once every 10 minutes of waking life. Each check fragments attention and resets the cognitive load required to achieve deep focus. For a generation raised with digital interruption as their baseline, the capacity for sustained engagement has never been more difficult.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who pioneered the psychological concept of flow at Claremont Graduate University, documented through decades of research how these optimal engagement experiences contribute fundamentally to wellbeing. His studies demonstrate that people report their highest levels of happiness not during leisure or relaxation, but during states of complete absorption in optimally challenging activities.

Csikszentmihalyi's research shows that flow states correlate strongly with subjective well-being, meaning, and resilience. Without access to these experiences, young adults lose a critical pathway to self-knowledge and satisfaction.

Parents, coaches, and clinicians navigating this landscape face their own challenges. How do you guide someone toward deeper engagement when digital distraction is culturally normalized and professionally rewarded? The answer lies not in digital abstinence but in digital intentionality.

Cal Newport, computer scientist and author of "Deep Work," argues through his research that the capacity for sustained focus has become increasingly rare and increasingly valuable. His work suggests that helpers can function as environmental architects, creating spaces and times where engagement becomes possible by establishing device-free zones or activities, modeling deep work in their own lives, or supporting young adults in pursuing activities matched to their strengths and interests—activities where the challenge level stretches but doesn't overwhelm their capabilities.

Digital Connection, Emotional Isolation, and the Relationship Paradox

Perhaps nowhere is the contradiction of modern young adulthood more apparent than in the realm of relationships—the "R" in Seligman's model. Today's young adults are simultaneously hyperconnected and profoundly isolated. They maintain digital relationships across vast networks while reporting unprecedented levels of loneliness.

A 2023 Surgeon General's report declared loneliness a public health crisis, with young adults showing higher rates than any other age group except the elderly. This despite—or perhaps because of—spending approximately six hours daily on social platforms ironically designed for connection.

Sherry Turkle, MIT sociologist and author of "Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other," has documented through years of research how digital connectivity often substitutes the appearance of connection for its substance. Her interviews with young adults reveal a generation that can have hundreds of followers but few people to call in a crisis—individuals who have mastered performing closeness without experiencing it.

This relationship deficit strikes at the heart of wellbeing. Harvard's landmark longevity study, spanning over 80 years under the direction of researchers like Robert Waldinger, consistently identifies meaningful social connection as the strongest predictor of life satisfaction, physical health, and longevity. For young adults navigating identity formation and life transitions, quality relationships provide both a secure base and a mirror for self-understanding.

Parents occupy a uniquely complex position in this relational landscape. According to attachment theorist and clinical psychologist Edward Tronick, they represent both a primary attachment relationship and a relationship that must evolve to accommodate adult independence. The challenge becomes supporting healthy connections without becoming the young adult's primary social outlet.

Research by Karen Fingerman at the University of Texas at Austin shows that the most effective parents of young adults function as relationship coaches rather than relationship substitutes—creating opportunities for connection, modeling vulnerability and healthy boundaries, and validating the very real challenges of building meaningful relationships in a culture designed for superficial engagement.

This might look like hosting gatherings that include their young adult's peers, sharing their own friendship struggles, or helping frame rejection as information rather than indictment. Jeffrey Hall's friendship research at the University of Kansas provides valuable context, finding that it takes approximately 50 hours of interaction to move from acquaintance to casual friend, and 200 hours to develop a close friendship—a finding that normalizes the gradual nature of relationship building and frames friendship as a practice rather than a personality trait.

The Meaning Crisis and the Search for Purpose

If relationships provide external anchoring, meaning—the "M" in PERMA—provides internal orientation. Meaning encompasses purpose, coherence, and significance—the sense that one's life matters and makes sense within a larger narrative. And it is precisely here that many young adults find themselves adrift.

Philosopher Jonathan Lear describes our contemporary challenge as one of "radical hope"—the goal being to imagine a meaningful future when traditional frameworks for meaning have collapsed. Young adults today have been unwittingly forced into this liminal space. Religious affiliation has declined sharply, political institutions have lost credibility, career trajectories have fragmented, and technological change continually reshapes the landscape of possibility.

Philosopher and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, founder of logotherapy and author of "Man's Search for Meaning," observed that meaning is not something inherited but something discovered through lived experience. Modern meaning researchers like Michael Steger at Colorado State University have built on Frankl's insights, developing empirical approaches to studying how people construct meaning in their lives. Steger's research demonstrates that previous generations often inherited clearer meaning structures through religious institutions, stable career trajectories, and cultural consensus, while today's young adults navigate a meaning landscape that is far more opaque and fragmented.

Steger's research indicates concerning trends, with young adults reporting lower levels of perceived meaning than previous generations. Yet his research also shows remarkable resilience among those who establish even tentative sources of purpose, with meaningful goals serving as psychological anchors during life transitions.

When it comes to navigating this meaning landscape, parents, coaches, and clinicians  must proceed delicately. Research by William Damon at Stanford University's Center on Adolescence demonstrates that heavy-handed attempts to impose meaning frameworks typically backfire, while complete relativism offers insufficient guidance. The middle path involves what Damon terms "scaffolding for purpose"—supporting young adults in their own meaning-making process through reflection, inquiry, and exposure to diverse frameworks.

This might involve asking questions that prompt reflection on values and purpose, sharing family and cultural narratives that provide continuity across generations, or encouraging involvement in communities and causes that transcend individual concerns.

Dan McAdams at Northwestern University, known for his research on narrative identity, demonstrates how personal storytelling serves as a mechanism for meaning construction. His work suggests that helpers can support meaning development not by providing answers, but by sharing their own authentic narratives—including periods of confusion and doubt—thereby normalizing the search for meaning as part of the human experience.

Achievement Anxiety and the Redefinition of Accomplishment

The final dimension of Seligman's model—Accomplishment—represents perhaps the most culturally loaded element for today's young adults who have inherited a definition of success that is simultaneously more demanding and more elusive than at any previous point in history.

Psychologist Suniya Luthar, whose decades of research at Arizona State University, has documented how expectations for young adults have escalated dramatically over the years. Her studies show that ordinary achievement no longer registers as sufficient in many communities, with young adults feeling the need to be exceptional just to maintain middle-class status.

This escalation of expectations collides with decreasing economic opportunity, creating what sociologist Rachel Sherman at the New School terms "status anxiety"—the fear of falling behind or being revealed as inadequate. For many young adults, accomplishment has become less a source of satisfaction than a defense against shame.

Data from the Pew Research Center confirms this shift, with surveys showing that a significantly higher percentage of Americans aged 18-29 report feeling they have failed to meet their own expectations compared to previous generations. At the same time, young adults today face genuine structural obstacles to traditional markers of adult accomplishment, from housing affordability to student debt to job insecurity.

Parents, coaches, and clinicians navigating this landscape must strike a delicate balance between supporting ambition and challenging perfectionism. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck's extensive research on mindset provides some valuable guidance here. Her studies demonstrate that cultivating a "growth mindset"—the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—significantly improves resilience and learning outcomes compared to a "fixed mindset" that views abilities as static traits.

Luthar's research with affluent youth shows that the most supportive parents help reframe accomplishment from an identity statement to a developing process. They celebrate effort and learning rather than outcomes, normalize setbacks as information rather than failure, and help their young adults identify intrinsic metrics of success rather than relying exclusively on external validation.

Angela Duckworth's research on grit at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that helpers can support healthy accomplishment by asking questions that help extract value from setbacks: What skills have been developed? What has been learned about preferences and priorities? How might difficult experiences inform more aligned future choices? This approach shifts perspective from "I've failed" to "I'm gathering data," integrating setbacks into a larger narrative of growth rather than allowing them to become defining events.

The Parent's Path: From Control to Influence

For the parents of struggling young adults, perhaps the most challenging aspect of applying the PERMA model is reconciling their deep desire to protect with their children's need to develop autonomy. This is a tall order indeed when the parental instinct to shield a child from pain conflicts directly with the developmental necessity of a young person navigating their challenges independently.

Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, founders of Self-Determination Theory at the University of Rochester, have conducted extensive research on human motivation and development. Their work demonstrates that the primary task for parents during this stage is transitioning from control to autonomy support—providing the conditions that allow young adults to internalize motivation rather than relying on external pressure or reward.

Their decades of research consistently shows that the most effective parenting approach combines "autonomy support" with "conditional availability"—being present without being intrusive, offering guidance without imposing solutions. This balance allows young adults to develop independence while maintaining access to support when needed.

Jennifer Tanner, developmental psychologist and co-founder of the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood, further emphasizes that parental relationships during this transition period serve as a "secure base" from which young adults can explore identity and possibilities. Her research shows that effective parents maintain connection while gradually transferring responsibility for wellbeing to the young adult.

The PERMA model provides a framework for this transition, shifting the focus from problem-solving to wellbeing-building. Rather than focusing exclusively on fixing what's wrong, helpers can help cultivate what enables flourishing—creating conditions where positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment become possible.

This approach recognizes that struggles rarely exist in isolation. The anxious young adult isn't merely experiencing anxiety—they're experiencing a system of interlocking deficits across multiple wellbeing dimensions. The unemployed graduate isn't merely lacking a job—they're lacking engagement, accomplishment, and often the relational connections that provide both emotional support and professional opportunity.

By addressing these underlying dimensions, parents, clinicians, and coaches can help create the psychological infrastructure that supports not just problem resolution but genuine flourishing. This doesn't mean ignoring practical realities or enabling dependence. Rather, as developmental psychologist Jeffrey Arnett's research on emerging adulthood demonstrates, it means recognizing that sustainable independence grows from psychological wellbeing rather than from mere behavioral compliance.

A Parallel Journey: Parent and Child

Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the PERMA model for parents is its application to their own lives. Parents supporting struggling young adults often experience their own wellbeing challenges—worry, grief over changing relationships, uncertainty about their role, and sometimes shame about their children's struggles.

Psychologist Kristin Neff, a leading researcher on self-compassion at the University of Texas at Austin, emphasizes that parents must practice self-care while supporting struggling young adults. Her research demonstrates that parents who maintain their own wellbeing not only experience less burnout but also model healthy boundaries and emotional regulation for their children.

This parallel journey involves parents cultivating their own positive emotions amid worry, engaging in activities that provide flow and satisfaction independent of their children's progress, nurturing their adult partnerships and friendships rather than focusing exclusively on the parent-child relationship, maintaining connection to sources of meaning beyond parenting, and recognizing their own accomplishments beyond their children's achievements.

Research by family systems theorist Murray Bowen demonstrates how differentiation—maintaining a clear sense of self while staying connected to family—creates healthier family dynamics than enmeshment, where parents become overly identified with their children's struggles. His work suggests that parents who maintain their own wellbeing create emotional space that paradoxically allows young adults to share more authentically, without the pressure of managing their parents' anxiety about their challenges.

The Architecture of Hope

Martin Seligman's intellectual journey began with learned helplessness—the condition in which repeated exposure to uncontrollable negative events leads to the perception that nothing one does matters. His research revealed both the devastating effects of this perception and its remarkable malleability. Through specific interventions, he discovered that learned helplessness could be replaced with what he called "learned optimism"—the perception that one's actions can meaningfully impact outcomes.

This trajectory—from helplessness to agency, from deficit to possibility—mirrors the journey many parents and young adults must undertake together. In a cultural moment characterized by unprecedented challenges and fundamental uncertainty, the PERMA model offers not a solution but a direction—a set of coordinates for navigating toward well-being even when definitive answers remain elusive.

The model's power lies in its integration. It recognizes that positive emotions provide the fuel for engagement, engagement develops the strengths that enable accomplishment, accomplishment contributes to meaning, meaning deepens relationships, and relationships generate positive emotions—creating a self-reinforcing cycle of wellbeing.

For parents, coaches, and clinicians supporting struggling young adults, this integrated perspective offers a path forward amid complexity and contradiction. It suggests that wellbeing emerges not from perfect solutions or absence of struggle, but from the cultivation of specific psychological dimensions that enable flourishing even amid challenge.

In this sense, the PERMA model offers something more valuable than answers—it offers architecture. In a landscape where traditional structures have collapsed or proven inadequate, it provides a framework for building new possibilities, not by imposing form but by creating conditions where growth becomes possible.

As Seligman himself wrote, "I realized that my time-honored role as Knight of the Dark Table, slayer of the dragons of pessimism, must give way to service as one of the Knights of the Round Table of positive psychology." For parents of struggling young adults, this shift—from dragon-slaying to possibility-building—may offer the most sustainable path forward for both generations.

In the end, perhaps what young adults need most is not parents who have all the answers, but parents who demonstrate that flourishing remains possible even amid uncertainty—parents who embody what philosopher Martha Nussbaum calls "upheaval of thought," the capacity to transform suffering into meaning through attention, intention, and connection. In modeling this capacity, parents offer their children not protection from life's inevitable challenges, but something far more valuable: the architecture of resilience.

A Helpful Resource

At YPM, our team has extensive experience successfully guiding adolescents, young adults and their families through the modern landscape of emerging adulthood. Spanning four continents, our work has helped hundreds of teens, and their families, connect with professional youth mentors and expert clinicians whom they can relate to and learn from. 

Our highly skilled mentors are experts at helping their young clients foster engagement, accomplishment, meaning, and beneficial relationships. Our innovative mentoring programs are specifically designed to help struggling youth learn from their failures, tap into their strengths, and activate their potential. 

With our bespoke approach and discreet care, we can help your struggling loved one recalibrate their struggles so that they become a part of their growth process, rather than stifling it. Connect with us today to learn more about how we can help your struggling loved one achieve enduring wellness on their own terms and in their own communities.