The law of the instrument, also called the law of the hammer, Maslow's hammer or the golden hammer, is a cognitive bias involving an over-reliance on a single familiar tool or method, applying it even where it does not fit the problem at hand. The psychologist Abraham Maslow expressed the idea in 1966 with the line that it is tempting, if the only tool a person has is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail, though the underlying observation is also attributed to the philosopher Abraham Kaplan, and the exact hammer-and-nail phrasing may not have originated with either of them.
Facts
Core ClaimA person who is skilled with one familiar tool or method tends to treat every new problem as if it calls for that same tool, whether or not it actually fits. 1 First Described Year Classification
Type of Phenomenon Connections
In Branch
Source Wikipedia: Law of the instrument
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Law of the instrument
Wikimedia Foundationlead paragraph, Maslow quotation
it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
History section, Kaplan 1964
The first recorded statement of the concept was Abraham Kaplan's, in 1964: "I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding."
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
The law of the instrument, also called the law of the hammer, Maslow's hammer or the golden hammer, is a cognitive bias involving an over-reliance on a single familiar tool or method, applying it even where it does not fit the problem at hand.
In Branch: Cognitive Psychology, Categories
Wikipedia article 'Law of the instrument' is filed under Category:Cognitive biases.
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