Golden hammer
Encyclopedia
The concept known as the law of the instrument, Maslow's hammer, or a golden hammer is an over-reliance on a familiar tool; as Abraham Maslow
said in 1966, "It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."
'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."
Maslow's hammer, popularly phrased as "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" and variants thereof, is from Abraham Maslow's The Psychology of Science, published in 1966.
It has also been called the law of the hammer,
attributed both to Maslow
and to Kaplan.
The hammer and nail metaphor may not be original to Kaplan or Maslow. The English expression "a Birmingham
screwdriver
" meaning a hammer, references the habit of using the one tool for all purposes, and predates both Kaplan and Maslow by at least a century. The concept has also been attributed to Mark Twain
, though there is no documentation of this origin in Twain's published writings.
Under the name of "Baruch's Observation," it is also attributed to the stock market speculator and author Bernard M. Baruch
.
, the tendency for regulators to look at things from the point of view of the profession they are regulating.
The notion of a golden hammer, "a familiar technology or concept applied obsessively to many software problems", has been introduced into the information technology
literature in 1998 as an anti-pattern
: a programming practice to be avoided.
Except in the most literal of cases (where the opposite of using a golden hammer would presumably be using the "right tool for the job") the antonym for this mindset would be there's more than one way to skin a cat.
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...
said in 1966, "It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."
History
The first recorded statement of the concept was Abraham KaplanAbraham Kaplan
Abraham Kaplan was an American philosopher, known best for being the first philosopher to systematically examine the behavioral sciences in his book "The Conduct of Inquiry" . His thinking was influenced by pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey.-Biography:Kaplan's...
'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."
Maslow's hammer, popularly phrased as "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" and variants thereof, is from Abraham Maslow's The Psychology of Science, published in 1966.
It has also been called the law of the hammer,
attributed both to Maslow
and to Kaplan.
The hammer and nail metaphor may not be original to Kaplan or Maslow. The English expression "a Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
screwdriver
Screwdriver
A screwdriver is a tool for driving screws and often rotating other machine elements with the mating drive system. The screwdriver is made up of a head or tip, which engages with a screw, a mechanism to apply torque by rotating the tip, and some way to position and support the screwdriver...
" meaning a hammer, references the habit of using the one tool for all purposes, and predates both Kaplan and Maslow by at least a century. The concept has also been attributed to Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, though there is no documentation of this origin in Twain's published writings.
Under the name of "Baruch's Observation," it is also attributed to the stock market speculator and author Bernard M. Baruch
Bernard Baruch
Bernard Mannes Baruch was an American financier, stock-market speculator, statesman, and political consultant. After his success in business, he devoted his time toward advising U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic matters and became a philanthropist.-Early life...
.
Related concepts
Other forms of narrow-minded instrumentalism include: déformation professionnelle, a French term for "looking at things from the point of view of one's profession", and regulatory captureRegulatory capture
In economics, regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as...
, the tendency for regulators to look at things from the point of view of the profession they are regulating.
The notion of a golden hammer, "a familiar technology or concept applied obsessively to many software problems", has been introduced into the information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
literature in 1998 as an anti-pattern
Anti-pattern
In software engineering, an anti-pattern is a pattern that may be commonly used but is ineffective and/or counterproductive in practice.The term was coined in 1995 by Andrew Koenig,...
: a programming practice to be avoided.
Except in the most literal of cases (where the opposite of using a golden hammer would presumably be using the "right tool for the job") the antonym for this mindset would be there's more than one way to skin a cat.