diff --git a/src/hdmf/build/manager.py b/src/hdmf/build/manager.py
index 448567ccc..3dce4281e 100644
--- a/src/hdmf/build/manager.py
+++ b/src/hdmf/build/manager.py
@@ -497,7 +497,7 @@ def load_namespaces(self, **kwargs):
         'utf-8': str,
         'ascii': bytes,
         'bytes': bytes,
-        'bool': bool,
+        'bool': (bool, np.bool_),
         'isodatetime': datetime,
         'datetime': datetime
     }
diff --git a/src/hdmf/spec/spec.py b/src/hdmf/spec/spec.py
index 4af161c50..26bc4a905 100644
--- a/src/hdmf/spec/spec.py
+++ b/src/hdmf/spec/spec.py
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ class DtypeHelper:
         'long': ["int64", "long"],
         'utf': ["text", "utf", "utf8", "utf-8"],
         'ascii': ["ascii", "bytes"],
-        'bool': ["bool"],
+        'bool': ["bool", "bool_"],
         'int8': ["int8"],
         'uint8': ["uint8"],
         'uint16': ["uint16"],
diff --git a/src/hdmf/utils.py b/src/hdmf/utils.py
index b4d7297b8..b9230c4c9 100644
--- a/src/hdmf/utils.py
+++ b/src/hdmf/utils.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 
 __macros = {
     'array_data': [np.ndarray, list, tuple, h5py.Dataset],
-    'scalar_data': [str, int, float, bytes],
+    'scalar_data': [str, int, float, bytes, bool],
     'data': []
 }
 
diff --git a/tests/unit/utils_test/test_docval.py b/tests/unit/utils_test/test_docval.py
index 3ee1174fa..de9308171 100644
--- a/tests/unit/utils_test/test_docval.py
+++ b/tests/unit/utils_test/test_docval.py
@@ -976,13 +976,13 @@ def test_macro(self):
         self.assertTrue(isinstance(get_docval_macro(), dict))
         self.assertSetEqual(set(get_docval_macro().keys()), {'array_data', 'scalar_data', 'data'})
 
-        self.assertTupleEqual(get_docval_macro('scalar_data'), (str, int, float, bytes))
+        self.assertTupleEqual(get_docval_macro('scalar_data'), (str, int, float, bytes, bool))
 
         @docval_macro('scalar_data')
         class Dummy1:
             pass
 
-        self.assertTupleEqual(get_docval_macro('scalar_data'), (str, int, float, bytes, Dummy1))
+        self.assertTupleEqual(get_docval_macro('scalar_data'), (str, int, float, bytes, bool, Dummy1))
 
         @docval_macro('dummy')
         class Dummy2:
diff --git a/tests/unit/validator_tests/test_validate.py b/tests/unit/validator_tests/test_validate.py
index 02406efab..b4d5aed6c 100644
--- a/tests/unit/validator_tests/test_validate.py
+++ b/tests/unit/validator_tests/test_validate.py
@@ -311,6 +311,16 @@ def test_bool_for_numeric(self):
                            "Bar/data (my_bar/data): incorrect type - expected 'numeric', got 'bool'"}
         self.assertEqual(result_strings, expected_errors)
 
+    def test_np_bool_for_bool(self):
+        """Test that validator allows np.bool_ data where bool is specified."""
+        self.set_up_spec('bool')
+        value = np.bool_(True)
+        bar_builder = GroupBuilder('my_bar',
+                                   attributes={'data_type': 'Bar', 'attr1': value},
+                                   datasets=[DatasetBuilder('data', value)])
+        results = self.vmap.validate(bar_builder)
+        self.assertEqual(len(results), 0)
+
 
 class Test1DArrayValidation(TestCase):