Examples of Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Needs


A need it is a feeling of lack added to the desire to satisfy it. Needs are characterized by being unlimited in number and quantity, so they can be constantly created. These created needs, moreover, can be replaced or disappear and reappear. For example: take a bath, have medical coverage, have a group of friends.

It may also happen that the needs imply other needs, such as tools or instruments: the production circuit is designed for needs designed to satisfy other needs, in integrated mechanisms.

Maslow’s needs

However, at the heart of the matter are always the human needs. There are many classifications that can be made of these needs, but the one that divides them according to the degree of importance they have in human beings stands out.

While some respond to the most elementary biological questions of the human being, others are more dispensable because they have to do with the social relations that are being generated. This classification corresponds to the Maslow’s pyramid, a psychological theory that organizes the needs of people:

Primary needs

They are those that have to do with physiology of people, so they must be cared for to survive. Some of them do not allow doing business because they are accessible in nature (such as the air) but others do give rise to this, because they are sold.

It often happens that complete satisfaction of these needs for the people is a matter of public interest, and that the States commit to ensuring that everyone has access.

  1. Consume some type of food.
  2. Maintain body temperature.
  3. Eliminate waste produced by the body.
  4. Bath.
  5. Have sexual intercourse
  6. Maintain the pH balance.
  7. Living place.
  8. Breathing air.
  9. Drinking water.
  10. Rest a number of hours per day.

Secondary needs

Once the physiological needs are satisfied, people usually have needs to strengthen their ability to live, and to improve their quality of life as a function of effort. It is, then, a set of needs that come from think about life and the future of it, in such a way that it becomes more comfortable, even if it is still considered basic needs.

  1. Vaccines.
  2. Be sure that for a reasonable time you will have your job.
  3. The possibility of insuring your home.
  4. Physical security on the streets.
  5. Moral security.
  6. Have medical coverage.
  7. Guarantee of your private property.
  8. Have the guarantee of access to certain resources once you have retired from work.
  9. Stay warm in cold weather.
  10. Have a mobile phone to be able to communicate in cases of need.

Tertiary needs

The third group of needs, like the previous one, thinks of a person who has already satisfied the previous groups and therefore does not have physiological deficiencies and who is safe. It is evident that a person in this context begins to have social needs, based on coexistence with others. The affiliation or recognition needs are what are called tertiary.

  1. Have a group of friends.
  2. Receive affection from the family.
  3. Living in a society in which justice prevails.
  4. Generate couple relationships.
  5. Possibility of being relatively successful in your work.
  6. Have camaraderie between work or study colleagues.
  7. Be respected in society.
  8. Living in a society that has dignity: it is often said that this does not happen when the differences between the rich and the poor are very great.
  9. Act independently and therefore feel that you are responsible for your own actions.
  10. Access participation in social or community affairs.