The Basic Emotional Needs of Human Beings

Human beings have basic emotional needs like expectancy, interest, curiosity, enthusiasm, and optimism, which are essential for engaging positively with the environment to satisfy bodily needs. Through foraging, individuals learn what satisfies their needs, encoding cause-and-effect relations and leading to individualized learning. Seeking and play, alongside emotions like rage and lust, are considered basic emotional needs based on empirical research using deep brain stimulation to map out emotional circuits in humans, primates, and mammals.