This paper addresses the mind-body problem in psychology and the analogous individual-social problem in sociology and social psychology created by the threat of reductionism. In the case of the mind-body problem, the issue of reductionism refers to whether the mind can be reduced to neurological processes in the brain; in the case of the individual-social problem, whether social phenomena can be reduced to the psychological states and actions of individuals. In both cases, scholars have turned to the idea of emergence as the antidote to reductionism. Discussion of the mind-body problem draws from the philosophy of mind. Discussion of the individual-social problem draws from the philosophy of mind as well but also critical realism and the idea of reality as a social construction. The paper distinguishes between downward ontological reduction, a denial of descriptive emergence, and downward epistemological reduction, a denial of explanatory emergence. Despite its argument for emergence, the paper concludes by discussing the possibility of incorporating neuroscience variables into psychology and neuroscience and psychological variables into sociology and social psychology.