Most likely a proverb of unknown authorship. The famous expression may have been derived from Maslow.
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I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
- If the only tool you have is a hammer, you are tempted to treat everything as if it were a nail.
- Maslow. The Psychology of Science(1966) p.15
- Toward a Psychology of Being(1962)
- If the only tool you have is a hammer, you are tempted to treat everything as if it were a nail.
Similar concept
- Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science, 1964, page 28:
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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.
- I call this the Law of Tools, which can be formulated as follows. Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find the need to hit everything he encounters.
proverb
- If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- When tools are limited, they are all used inappropriately or indiscriminately.
- A person who is well versed in a particular subject (= one who has a certain, single tool) may have a confirmation bias believing that it is the answer to everything/is involved in everything.
if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail - Wiktionary
Related Topics
- After acquiring one tool, they only “use” the tool they have at hand, even though “exploration” to acquire other tools is beneficial (Trade-offs between use and exploration).
- When you get a certain concept, you try to interpret everything with that concept (Shove it all in the jar.)
orthographical variants - When you hold a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- Everything looks like a nail to someone with a /shokai/hammer.
- Everything looks like a nail to someone with a /villagepump/hammer.
philomyu “Everything in the world looks like a nail when you hold a hammer” is an admonition, but I wonder if there isn’t a similar aspect where people who usually complain look at everything in the world as misfortune, people who are thankful look at everything in the world as a point of gratitude, and people who find the world interesting look at everything in the world as an interesting story. I wonder if there is an aspect in which a person who enjoys the world will see everything in the world as an interesting story.
Interesting() It’s going to be easier to find the same composition if you keep repeating a certain compositional view of the world.
philomyu There is a psychological study that says, “If you write a diary every night before going to bed thanking the good things that happened today, it seems to increase your level of happiness. I’m thinking about the risk of the opposite mechanism, that is, people who are angry at the world every day on social networking sites, their happiness level might go down rapidly.
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