if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail

English - English

Definition of if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail in English English dictionary

With limited tools, single-minded people apply them inappropriately or indiscriminately

If a person is familiar with a certain, single subject/has with them a certain, single instrument, they may have a confirmation bias to believe that it is the answer to/involved in everything

Hyphenation

if all you have I·s a hammer, eve·ry·thing looks like a nail

Etymology

() Likely traditional. In this form, perhaps from Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science, 1966, and his earlier book Abraham H. Maslow (1962), Toward a Psychology of Being: :I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. Similar concept by Abraham Kaplan, , 1964, page 28: :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.