Quote Originally Posted by reyn_til_runa
Quote Originally Posted by Dioklecian
I find that other INTps copy my behaviour, achievements, interests, etc. Is this a type thing?

Mimicking behavior seems necessary for a person to achieve his purpose in certain social settings.

Copying interests / achievements sounds annoying, but I suppose an INTp might be more apt than some types to desire competence in many areas. So, for example, if a skydiver tells the INTp about his skydiving adventures and the INTp has never skydove or even really considered it, he might start to think and even briefly express interest, like: "Hey, perhaps I should try skydiving." I know I've done it before. Somebody's achievement makes me realize I'm lacking knowledge or skill in that area, so I may begin to pursue it or at least study up on the jargon for the sake of easing the interaction.

There's also the element of INTps being top-notch chameleons. Be careful about labeling behavior as "copycat" when it may be more about remaining neutral and/or private, or even neutralizing a social interaction.
Okay this makes a lot more sense.

Yes if somebody talks about something that interests me that I know little about, I may want to learn more about it. I have a long pattern of this whether it's cars, photography, personality/temperament stuff, or anything really. It's not really "copying" as much as it is just learning something new. I like to take in as much as I can, and then if/when I get bored with it I find something else to learn about. I get to the depth I feel I need to be at to suit *my* purposes, and then that's when I generally get bored and move on. I know a little about A LOT but don't happen to posess huge amounts of "Ti" knowledge about any one particular topic. For example, some of the engineers I work with are "Ti hacks" about very specific things where if I need to know something about that thing, I go talk to them. I learn what I need to and then move on, but I have no desire to learn *EVERYTHING* about that specific topic. It's impossible to do so, especially being a Te type where you're more concerned about the overall big picture or system level characteristics and not about understanding every single little minute detail. The "Ti hacks" are incredibly knowledgeable about very narrow sub-sets of things but often have a complete inability to see the big picture, which is where I come in, and then we start butting heads.

So I can see how this might be considered "copying", but I'm really just picking someone's brain about something, finding out whether what the know is useful to me, and if so picking their brains some more and sorting through the information they give me until I'm satisfied with my understanding and move on. If the other INTps here are like me, we tend to have very broad interests which means learning about a lot of different things, potentially from other people, which could be considered "copying" I guess from their perspective.

From a social standpoint, I may "fake" an interest in something just for the sake of conversation despite the fact that I really have no interest. That's not copying though, it's faking. I think that has more to do with polr Fe and having no clue whatsoever and how to read people, so you know bringing up a topic of their interest is more likely to bring up a positive response, which covers for the polr Fe in a way I guess.