I suppose the difference is that anti-social behaviour has the intention to be so, whereas a-social behaviour may unintendedly lead to anti-social behaviour. So in that sense, yeah, I do mean asocial behaviour. Little language barrier I suppose. In dutch there isn't any actual difference between 'antisociaal' and 'asociaal' and 'asociaal' is widely used as a negative term to people who are not social, arrogant and stuck up.
I'm mostly Ne-ing in this topic and have failed to give any substantial evidence to back up my claims, this I am aware of and my sincere apologies for that, I will make it up below with something I noticed in my work relationship with my brother over the course of 10 years. That aside, I do feel I am on to something. On self-reflecting and reflecting back, I believe INTP's have a stronger social position than what might be apparant to the masses. And our behaviour that is seen as "asocial" more often than not, have very social reasons and intentions backing them up in the mind of the INTP. The drive that makes us the people we are, are based on a certain mindset that for all intents and purposes are to create a better social environment, firstly for ourselves, and secondly for the people around us.
any drive to influence anyone to adopt the INTP's views and attitudes seems rather un-INTP.
I think you've misunderstood me on that part though. I never said or intended to say that the INTP attempts to influence others by showing 'asocial' behaviour into their own patterns, but rather influence them indirectly to by raising questions and creating conflicts where the norm sees no problem. See it is causing people to think outside of the box. To look at something at an angle they may not previously have thought off. And through that influence, people create a better understanding by themselves, not neccesarily the understanding the INTP has, or not even remotely close to the understanding the INTP has. Since behaviour, society and 'the norm' are all highly biased idealogies, that differ from person to person, there really isn't a way one could say that is the right way and that is the wrong way. What may be right for some, might be wrong for others and vice versa. But the INTP's behaviour leads to a different level of thinking, and thus creates an elevation of social norms.
I could try to explain using an example from my real life. I work closely together with my brother, both running different parts of the company. Both have our own skillsets and both have our own duties for the most part. But sometimes we do ofcourse end up working at the same thing. I am INTP and my brother is ENTP. My brother, like me, is all for effeciency, not doing anything that doesn't need to be done, playing with deadlines, and seeing plenty of ways to minimize effort in order to get things done. This isn't a bad thing for us because it does leave us with plenty of time focusing on new development, which is a good thing being entrepeneurs. But when our work coincides, especially if what we need to do is something menial, like washing and preparing a bus (coach) in the middle of the night just after it returned because it has to go to another customer in 3 hours or so. Our way of thinking clashes. My brother will move and act in such accordance, that at every turn on the way, I end up doing just a little more than him. If five tables have to be put in the coach, he will wait for me to pick up the first, so he takes the second, me the third, he the fourth, me the fifth, etc. Things like that, many times a day, every day, with anything you can name. Now I used to address him on it in the beginning (quite socially to the norm!), since he always does it, every single time, and it started to frustrate me. And most of the time, we'd end up having some silly discussion about semantics and end up wasting even more time, not getting much work done at all as a result.
Many years ago (Probably like 8 years ago now), I chose to ignore the subject alltogether and just completely avoid all conflict, I figured I'd bite through his many little schemes and get on with it, because we started to get too much friction between us and my brother isn't very stress resistant, facing a burn out and I feared for further decline and the situation escalating into something much worse (There was a lot of work stress as well at the time, and everything just seemed to start and add up.). So I entered my little INTP shell of avoidance. Trying to keep the work pace up, and be done with things. No arguements and no more conflicts with my brother.
Oddly, and this happened fairly quickly after I started to ignore his frustrating behaviour, keeping the work pace up. He started to go with the flow of the pace himself, and his little schemes of super effeciency died down and became nothing more than the draw of the luck. Odd, I thought! But hey, I'm cool with it, things were looking up and much less frustration seeped out of either one of us. Ever since then, my work relationship with my brother has been extremely stale, but at the same time, much more effecient and stress free. Where we were first clashing against each other, not getting into the flow of work at all, being all P vs P. We no longer have any issues with this. I just take the lead, let him do whatever he does, and do whatever I do, and work just gets done. I never asked him about this change, and don't intend to. But it must have been a conscious change on his side as well.
Now I am wondering. What is social behaviour, if not behaviour that improves a social environment? Even though that behaviour may seem typically asocial. And what makes it hard to grasp, that an INTP's assumed asocial behaviour, may be a means to better a social environment. And that it is our way of being social?
