Format Painter altering existing Styles

[Nancy]

Often when I use the Format Painter to copy a style from
one line to another, Word automatically alters the format
of the original line of text. At the same time, it
alters the format of the style that I just copied.
However, the text that I copied TO keeps the original
format of the style that I copied FROM. (What is altered
is the indent spacing.)

This happens frequently when working with styles
containing Outline Numbering and staggered indent spacing.

Does anyone have a solution to this problem?