Studies have found that some lone actor attacks are committed because of personal grievances and a desire for revenge, while others are acts of terrorism, intended to induce fear and influence the way people think.
Lone actor terrorists are ideologically driven, with political or religious motives, and are intended to create fear and influence public opinion.
Jenson says there were hundreds of violent anarchist incidents during this period most of which were committed by lone individuals or very small groups without command structures or leaders.
As such, it is considerably more difficult for counter-terrorism officials to gather intelligence on lone wolves, since they may not come into contact with routine counter-terrorist surveillance.
[20] According to the Financial Times, counter-terrorism officials refer to "lone individuals known to authorities but not considered important enough to escalate investigations" as "known wolves".
[23] Compared to the general population, lone wolf terrorists are significantly more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental illness, although it is not an accurate profiler.
[25] This puts lone wolves as being 13.5 times more likely to suffer from a mental illness than a member of an organized terrorist group, such as al-Qaeda or ISIS.
[26] Mental health challenges are thought to make some individuals among the many who suffer from certain "psychological disturbances", vulnerable to being inspired by extremist ideologies to commit acts of lone wolf terrorism.
[27] An alternative explanation is that terrorist groups reject those with mental illnesses as they pose a security risk, creating a selection bias.
[26] Abdelwahab El-Affendi has developed a theory that suggests lone wolf attacks and similar mass violence events occur as a result of "narratives of insecurity", where the aggressor(s) are motivated out of a sense of cataclysmic impending danger to their culture, race, religion, or way of life.
[30]Stochastic terrorism refers to political or media figures publicly demonizing a person or group, inspiring their supporters to commit a violent act against the target of the speech.
Unlike incitement to terrorism, this is done using indirect, vague or coded language, which allows the instigator to plausibly disclaim responsibility for the resulting violence.
[31]: 157 In the wake of escalating attacks on the LGBT community in the early 2020s, including bomb threats on children's hospitals and the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting, right-wing activists such as Matt Walsh and Chaiya Raichik of Libs of TikTok have been accused of stochastic terrorism.