The dynamic mechanical responses of Scots pine, paper, PA6, cellophane, PVAc and PUR samples subjected to changes in the relative humidity of the surrounding air from 5 to 85% and vice versa have been analysed semiquantitatively on the basis of coupled non-linear rate equations for the moisture concentration in the sample as a function of the time. Important characteristics of the diffusion of moisture into and out of the samples have been studied by measuring the sample weight as a function of time. Moisture sorption results in sample swelling in Scots pine, paper, PA6, cellophane and PUR, for all of which mechanical loss peaks were detected. For PVAc, which does not bind moisture at load-bearing hydrogen bonding sites, no mechanical loss peak could be found. Characteristic of the mechanical loss at low vibration frequencies (0.01 to 1 Hz) is a peak immediately following a change in relative humidity for all studied sample materials except PVAc. This peak is almost certainly due to modulation of the number of load-bearing hydrogen bonds in the material. The relation between the width of the mechanical loss peak and the duration of the moisture sorption and desorption processes is interpreted according to an accepted model of two water molecule binding modes, one in which load-bearing hydrogen bonds are broken unimolecularly by water molecules and one in which further water molecules form clusters on the already unimolecularly bound water.