These methods are called to implement the augmented arithmetic assignments (+=, -=, *=, @=, /=, //=, %=, **=, <<=, >>=, &=, ^=, |=). These methods should attempt to do the operation in-place (modifying self) and return the result (which could be, but does not have to be, self). If a specific method is not defined, or if that method returns NotImplemented, the augmented assignment falls back to the normal methods. For instance, if x is an instance of a class with an __iadd__() method, x += y is equivalent to x = x.__iadd__(y) . If __iadd__() does not exist, or if x.__iadd__(y) returns NotImplemented, x.__add__(y) and y.__radd__(x) are considered, as with the evaluation of x + y. In certain situations, augmented assignment can result in unexpected errors (see Why does a_tuple[i] += [‘item’] raise an exception when the addition works?), but this behavior is in fact part of the data model.