The Psychology of Science · Abraham Maslow

Maslow's hammer examples

Curated by · reviewed 2026-06-01

If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. We over-apply the one skill or method we know best.

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5 examples of maslow's hammer

  1. The spreadsheet for everything

    A finance expert turns a culture problem into a numbers problem because numbers are their hammer.

  2. Surgery-minded doctor

    A surgeon leans toward operating; a physician toward pills — the fix often matches the specialty, not the patient.

  3. The coder's reflex

    Every business issue becomes 'let's build an app', even when a phone call would solve it.

  4. The lawyer's lens

    A legal mind sees contracts and liability where a simpler trust-based fix would do.

  5. One parenting trick

    What worked for the first child gets hammered onto the second, who needs something completely different.

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