<P> The concept known as the law of the instrument, otherwise known as the law of the hammer, Maslow's hammer (or gavel), or the golden hammer, is a cognitive bias that involves an over-reliance on a familiar tool . As Abraham Maslow said in 1966, "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail ." </P> <P> The concept is attributed both to Maslow and to Abraham Kaplan, although the hammer and nail line may not be original to either of them . It has in fact been attributed "to everyone from Buddha to Bernard Baruch". Mark Twain has sometimes been credited with it, though it cannot be found in Twain's published writings . Under the name of "Baruch's Observation", it has also been attributed to the stock market speculator and author Bernard M. Baruch . </P>

If all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail examples