This report describes four projects that apply Robert J. Sternberg's theories to various aspects of giftedness and gifted performance. Project 1, a construct validation and educational application of Sternberg's triarchic theory of human intelligence, revealed that students who are instructed and whose achievement is evaluated in a way that matches (at least partially) their profile of abilities will perform better in school than children who are mismatched. Project 2, which examined the construct validity of Sternberg's theory of mental self-government, found that teachers tend to: (1) evaluate more positively students who match their own profile or style and (2) overestimate the extent to which students match their own style of thinking. Project 3, construct validation of Sternberg and Lubart's investment theory of creativity, found that creative individuals are people who "buy low and sell high" in the world of ideas. Project 4, an investigation of Sternberg's pentagonal implicit theory of giftedness, found that society labels people as gifted to the extent that the people meet five criteria: excellence, rarity, productivity, demonstrability, and value. Overall, the four projects reveal the value of a theory-based approach to understanding giftedness. Each of the four parts contains references. (Author/DB)