Study 1 assessed students' use and perceptions of acronyms at 3 different exam times in 2 sections of Introduction to Psychology. Acronym use consistently predicted higher performance on acronymrelated exam items, and I partially discounted 2 possible confounds. Students rated acronyms as helpful in multiple ways, including increasing motivation to begin studying. Students reported low prior use of acronyms, created their own acronyms during the semester, and conveyed intentions to continue mnemonic use on their own in later classes. Study 2 assessed psychology instructors' use and views of acronyms. I also provide a list of acronyms for introductory psychology and discuss general considerations in the construction and classroom use of acronyms.

The complexity of one's attributional schemas was predicted to attenuate dissonance-produced attitude change after one writes a counterattitudinal essay (favoring yearly tuition increases). In both Experiments 1 and 2, participants high on attributional complexity (AC) exhibited less of a dissonance (choice) effect than those low on AC. The proposed explanation that AC allows for better external justification of a dissonant act was supported in Experiment 2, in which participants listed their reasons for writing the counterattitudinal essay. No support was found for the views that high-AC participants reduce dissonance through "trivialization" or that high-AC participants are more tolerant of dissonance than low-AC participants.

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