In a residential building with 12 peripheral columns and 4 inner

columns, why do the inner columns take on a greater load?

What you are getting at is known as the tributary area. For simple structures with columns
laid out on an evenly spaced rectangular grid the tributary area is intuitive and easily
computed. A simply supported beam or slab will apply half of its load to each end, where it
is supported. Columns in the interior will have more slab area or beams (keep in mind that
not all structures even have beams, flat plate construction is common)

I drew a quick sketch, and from your description, I believe this is the structure you had in
mind:-

The text is a little difficult to read, but it just says "Column A", "Column B" and "Column C"
from top to bottom. The blue areas represent the tributary area, or load each column is
expected to carry. We can see that for the corner column A it is only framed with one
quarter of the load of the interior column C, while B, the edge case, carries half the load.

Now there are a number of caveats.

1. The above only considers gravity loads, it doesn't consider any lateral loading,
which can increase or decrease the column loads substantially depending on how
the structure is designed.
2. The above assumes that the loads on all slab areas are the same. This isn't
necessarily true, it is common for some areas of a structure to be designed for
heavier loads than others. An example would a personal office space compared to
a group meeting room, or a storage room.
3. The above also assumes that the columns are uniformly spaced. This isn't always
the case, since we could have the grids at say 25' in one direction and 35' in the
opposite direction. Having different grid spacing would have the effect of making
the loads on an edge column different than the loads on an edge column of the
perpendicular edge of the building.
4. Finally, the above concept is most applicable to simple grid geometry. When the
location of columns is more sporadic, then intuiting the exact tributary area is not
possible and one needs to perform more detailed analysis accounting for the
stiffness of the members and their connections. For example, the below image of a
Zaha Hadid structure resists simple hand computation of the loads on the
columns.