Previous research suggests that individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) exhibit impairments in recognizing emotional facial expressions. However, facial expressions in daily life are rarely presented in isolation and are often influenced by contextual emotions. Despite this, most studies have neglected the role of emotional context in facial expression recognition. This study examined how emotional context (happy and sad) affects facial expression recognition and whether this effect differs between individuals with social anxiety and normal controls. We recruited 30 socially anxious and 30 non-socially anxious college students based on their Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) scores. Participants were presented with happy and sad facial expressions embedded in congruent and incongruent emotional contexts. The results showed that the social anxiety group had significantly longer reaction times than controls, though accuracy did not differ significantly between the two groups. Participants responded slightly faster to positive faces than negative faces. Emotional context didn’t significantly influence reaction times and accuracy of facial expression recognition in different context, likely due to the complexity of emotion-cognition interactions and potential comorbidities in SAD. This study highlights the slower response times in socially anxious individuals, potentially linked to increased self-monitoring or cautiousness in social settings. These findings emphasize the importance of considering individual differences and provide a foundation for developing targeted interventions to improve emotional recognition and quality of life in people with SAD.