Sanctions are now an established feature of the economic landscape in Russia and Iran and may lead to economic insecurity and distrust of political bodies among citizens of these countries. However, few studies have investigated the way individuals cope with sanctions and if their coping strategy relates to their trust in institutions. To address this gap, we aimed to compare Russians and Iranians regarding their economic coping strategies (ECS) in response to sanctions and the relationship of these strategies with their institutional trust. Using a cross-sectional design, we administered surveys in Russia and Iran. The results indicated that Russians have higher institutional trust and lower degrees of utilizing ECS compared to Iranians. Furthermore, we found that lower institutional trust is related to more use of overall ECS among Russians, but not Iranians. When we examined each coping strategy separately, we found that Russians with lower institutional trust relied more on seeking extra work, cutting expenses, and resorting to social and material resources for dealing with sanctions, while in Iran, this relationship was observed for cutting expenses and modern investments. We concluded that in Russia, financial insecurity induced by sanctions may have impacted institutional trust for low-income individuals that have been pressed to use certain strategies, while in Iran, the link between cutting expenses, modern investments, and institutional trust may be better explained by reduced life satisfaction and strict regulation of some investing activities.

economic sanctions, economic behavior, cross-cultural economic coping strategies, institutional trust, sanctions in Russia, sanctions in Iran