The primary needs are those vital to survive such as: food, sleep, drink water, breathe, protect from cold and heat.
Primary needs are essential for human beings to live. If those needs are not met, it is impossible to continue living.
There are several prominent authors, Maslow and Murray, who have conducted important studies on the subject.
Theories of primary needs
The pyramid of Maslow formulated a hierarchy of human needs. He affirms in his theory a hierarchy on these human needs and confirms that as the human being satisfies his most basic and vital needs for living that correspond to the bottom of the pyramid, humans develop continuous needs and desires that he includes in the upper parts .
Its creator, Abraham Maslow (1908-1970 USA), was a psychiatrist and driving psychologist of humanistic psychology, and creator of the theory of self-actualization.
Both Maslow’s theory and Murray’s theory speak of how human beings frequently have to meet a series of needs in order to survive and be in optimal physical shape. Biological aspects, and necessary impulses that have to be satisfied for a vital fullness.
What are deficit needs?
The so-called primary needs are included in a category called deficit needs. This means that we feel them when we lack some fundamental element for our survival. In addition, they are the only ones whose absence can cause physical health problems or even death.
The primary or most basic needs are the same in both theories: sleep, food, water, and shelter. But Maslow also added sex, which unlike the rest, not practicing it can not cause death, but its absence does affect human physical health.
Maslow considered that primary needs included hunger, thirst, sleep, and the need for shelter and sex.
Human beings need them to be carried out when one is missing, and they can be satisfied in the moment.
The primary needs according to Murray
According to Murray, one of the most prominent authors in the development of needs,
any need is capable of causing a certain tension. For this reason, the body tries to reduce this need by satisfying it.
For example, if a person is hungry, he feels fatigued, tense, without energy. So he immediately looks for food with which to satisfy his hunger.
In addition to primary needs, there are secondary needs, the fulfillment of which increases the satisfaction of the individual. For example, having health insurance or vaccinations.
It is also necessary to mention the tertiary ones that focus more on achieving social objectives, and that the human being considers when he has already satisfied the primary and secondary needs. For example: having a group of friends, generating relationships of affection with the family.
