Amusement at a funny joke may be fitting even if expressing amusement is costly to self-interest because observers may form a negative opinion of the amused agent

Our first distinctions pertain to three varieties of cognitive rationality for emotions: rationality as fittingness, rationality as warrant and rationality as coherence. The dominant view on emotions is that they are representations of core relational themes or formal objects. Therefore, a first dimension of assessment for rationality concerns whether or not such core relational themes/formal objects are instantiated. We may for instance say that fear is rational in terms of fittingness just in