In social interactions, an individual’s perception of others’ facial expressions is usually influenced by the evaluation of these other people of the personality traits of the individual, especially negative evaluations. We integrated social- appraisal contexts with self- and mother-referential processing in a Chinese cultural context to examine the effect of context, including different potencies and reference types, on the individual’s emotional perceptual processes of others' facial expressions. We found that neutral faces presented in positive/negative self-referential and mother-referential contexts were perceived as more positive/more negative than neutral faces presented in other- referential contexts. Event-related potential (ERP) data showed that self- referential and mother-referential negative contexts induced more pronounced early posterior negativity and late positive potential components than did other- referential contexts. However, these same contexts did not significantly affect the results of the positive ERP component that occurs approximately 100 ms after stimulus presentation (P1) and the negative deflection in wave amplitude that occurs around 170ms after the presentation of a face (N170). These results suggest that social-behavioral appraisals related to self and mother can influence the individual’s perception of an appraiser's facial emotions even when there is no personality trait appraisal.

The other-race effect refers to the phenomenon in which the chance of individuals misidentifying faces from other races more than their own race is significantly higher. This study explored the effect of motivation on the other-race effect by manipulating the social status of faces. The results showed that: (1) compared to other-race faces with low social status, when individuals' perceptions of the social status of other-race faces increased, individuals' recognition scores for high social status other-race faces increased, and the other-race effect disappeared, and (2) when individuals' perceptions of the social status of other-race faces decreased, there was no significant difference in individuals' recognition scores of other-race faces, of either high or low social status. These findings suggest that motivation has a significant impact on the other-race effect.

The other-race effect refers to the phenomenon in which the chance of individuals misidentifying faces from other races more than their own race is significantly higher. This study explored the effect of motivation on the other-race effect by manipulating the social status of faces. The results showed that: (1) compared to other-race faces with low social status, when individuals' perceptions of the social status of other-race faces increased, individuals' recognition scores for high social status other-race faces increased, and the other-race effect disappeared, and (2) when individuals' perceptions of the social status of other-race faces decreased, there was no significant difference in individuals' recognition scores of other-race faces, of either high or low social status. These findings suggest that motivation has a significant impact on the other-race effect.