The default psychological view (if you can call it that) in 1830 was Romantic Individualism.
The default psychological view in 2016 is that objective statistical trends are the rule across populations, not the exception.
There can be arguments about which statistics apply, and whether or not they're accurate and not measured poorly, or impossible to replicate, or even deliberately dishonest and politically motivated.
But there's no argument that in principle it's perfectly scientific to use statistics to identify and measure behavioural trends.
The shock in 1830 was discovering the latter fact. The idea that something personal like suicide might fit a measurable statistical trend was completely novel - perhaps because it directly challenged beliefs about heroic personal self-determination.
The fine details of the distributions don't matter. The fact that statistics can be used at all shocked people in a way that it doesn't now.
The default psychological view (if you can call it that) in 1830 was Romantic Individualism.
The default psychological view in 2016 is that objective statistical trends are the rule across populations, not the exception.
There can be arguments about which statistics apply, and whether or not they're accurate and not measured poorly, or impossible to replicate, or even deliberately dishonest and politically motivated.
But there's no argument that in principle it's perfectly scientific to use statistics to identify and measure behavioural trends.
The shock in 1830 was discovering the latter fact. The idea that something personal like suicide might fit a measurable statistical trend was completely novel - perhaps because it directly challenged beliefs about heroic personal self-determination.
The fine details of the distributions don't matter. The fact that statistics can be used at all shocked people in a way that it doesn't now.