Associative property. In addition or multiplication, the operand grouping does not affect the result. If we add two numbers together (for example, a+b) and then add a third number, c, we get the same result as if we first added b and c (that is, b+c) and then added the result to a: (a+b)+c=a+(b+c)=a+b+c. Note that a+b=b+a is not included in the associativity property.