Law of the instrument

“it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail”
(Maslow, Abraham Harold (1966), The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance)

This law of the instrument describes a tendency to overly rely on a tool one is already familiar with. The definition or the idea of the law of the instrument can not really be pinpointed to a specific person. Throughout human his/herstory several people had similar thoughts — as usual… — and such over-reliance to a familiar tool was observed in multiple fields, such as medicin, economics, politics, computer programming, and — well… — hammers.

The process of designing is often a problem-solving process “we [the designers] tend to formulate our problems in such a way as to make it seem that the solution to those problems demand precisely what we already happen to have at hand.” (Abraham Kaplan)

See also the Birmingham Skrewdriver.