Paige Baschuk, Daily Briefing

I'm going to have to ask my husband to stop praising my cooking skills in public.

Although I love to hear him talk about my prowess in the kitchen, his mother lives fewer than five miles away and is bound to get word that her son likes my linguine with clams the best. Apparently, such a claim could destroy the most fraught of family relationships—the one between mothers- and daughters-in-law, according to University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point communication professor Sylvia Mikucki-Enyart.

Mikucki-Enyart  discussed her research on the issue with the Wall Street Journal's Elizabeth Bernstein this week.