The English expression "a Birmingham screwdriver", meaning a hammer, refers to the practice of using the one tool for all purposes, and predates both Kaplan and Maslow by at least a century.
[6] In 1868, a London periodical, Once a Week, contained this observation: "Give a boy a hammer and chisel; show him how to use them; at once he begins to hack the doorposts, to take off the corners of shutter and window frames, until you teach him a better use for them, and how to keep his activity within bounds.
"[7] The first recorded statement of the concept was Abraham Kaplan'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.
An article in the June 1962 issue of the Journal of Medical Education stated that "the highlight of the 3-day meeting ... was to be found in Kaplan's comment on the choice of methods for research.
In The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science (1964), Kaplan again mentioned the law of the instrument saying, "It comes as no particular surprise to discover that a scientist formulates problems in a way which requires for their solution just those techniques in which he himself is especially skilled."
He wrote: "If one has a hammer one tends to look for nails, and if one has a computer with a storage capacity, but no feelings, one is more likely to concern oneself with remembering and with problem solving than with loving and hating."
According to Kagan, the corollary explains the difference in views on the use of military force the United States and Europe have held since the end of World War II.