The concept of primary group was first introduced by Charles Horten Cooley in his book ‘Social Organisation’. The primary group is the most universal group found in all the societies. It is a small group in which a few persons come into direct contact with each other. It is characterized by intimate, face-to-face relations. The people meet “face-to-face” for mutual help, friendship and discussion of common problems.

The primary group is the nucleus of all social organisations. It is the nursery of human nature and from it originates the human virtues of love, sympathy, co-operation, justice and fairly -play. It gives “creative expression to our social impulses”.

Cooley writes- “By Primary groups I mean those characterised by intimate face-to-face association and co-operation”. They are primary in several senses, but chiefly in that they are fundamental in forming the social nature and ideas of the individuals. The result of intimate association is a certain fusion of individualities in a common whole, so that one’s very self, for many purposes at least, is the common life and purpose of the group. Perhaps, the simplest way of describing the wholeness is by saying that it is a ‘we’, it involves the sort of sympathy and mutual identification of which ‘we’ is the natural expression”.

Primary group is a “face-to-face association” with the relationship of “sympathy and mutual identification”. It plays a very important role in forming the social nature and ideals of the individuals. The ‘self’ is developed by primary group relations. The best examples of primary groups are family, play group, neighborhood groups of village, tribe, clan etc.