A method and apparatus for dynamic lock granularity escalation and de-escalation in a computer system is provided. Upon receiving a request for a resource, a scope of a previously granted lock is modified. According to one embodiment, hash lock de-escalation is employed. In hash lock de-escalation, the scope of the previously granted lock held on a set of resources is reduced by de-escalating the previously granted lock from a coarser-grain lock to one or more finer-grain locks on members of the set. According to another embodiment, hash lock escalation is employed. In hash lock escalation, the scope of previously granted locks held on one or more members of the set of resources are released and promoted into a coarser-grain lock that covers the set of resources as well as the requested resource.